Vice as Human, not Gendered

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However, Leyster is not intent on placing the blame solely on men. In Carousing Couple, she depicts a couple lost in apparent revelry. The man is playing the violin, and the woman is offering him a freshly poured glass of wine. We can discern that the man is intoxicated, with his drooping eyes and reddened cheeks. He is at a crossroads where he can drink the wine or refuse. If he drinks the wine, he will be led astray and fall into a life of drunkenness and debauchery. If he refuses, he has the opportunity to live a moral life. However, it is his choice. Interestingly enough, the woman in the painting is believed to be the artist herself. This could be Leyster's way of telling the viewer that, although artists of her time often moralise about laziness or debauchery, they are not perfect either. Likewise, no one sex is more sinful than the other. Vice is a human trait, affecting everyone regardless of sex, occupation, or lot in life.

The work of Judith Leyster is among the many examples of works by women artists that are being rediscovered by art historians. You may recall my second essay at Suite "Authorship and the Woman Painter, Part II", which discusses two examples of women-produced artworks misattributed to men. Such was the case with Leyster. From shortly after her death to the late twentieth century, much, if not all, of her work was misattributed to her contemporary Frans Hals. Would Carousing Couple and The Proposition have been analysed and interpreted as above if Hals were still the presumed artist? That is a question to be answered at another time.

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