Judith Leyster

Arthur Kay, London and Glasgow (died 1939), before 1929 (as by Judith Leyster);
Georges Wildenstein, Paris, by 1941 (according to a label on the reverse);
Anonymous sale ("The Property of a Gentleman"), New York, Sotheby's, April 11, 1991, lot 183;
Dr Hinrich Bischoff, Berlin;
Thence by inheritance to the present owner. 

Buenos Aires, Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Exposicion de Pintura Flamenca y Holandesa, September - October 1941, no. 17 (as Johannes Molenaer, where belonging to Georges Wildenstein, according to a label on the reverse).

D.P. Weller, Jan Miense Molenaer:  Painter of the Dutch Golden Age, exhibition catalogue, Raleigh, N.C. 2002, pp. 71-73, under cat. no. 3, reproduced fig. 2. 

The panel is uncradled and beveled on all four sides. The paint surface has been very well retained with nice preservation of impasto in the figure. Under UV light: there are some small retouches on face, mostly at right side. There is also an area of retouching along the edge of the red cap just above his forehead. A few others in background. These have been well applied and there is no need for further work. In a dark wood irregularly shaped frame.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Dr. Frima Fox Hofrichter has recently examined this playfully humorous Boy peering into an earthenware tankard, after previously viewing it in 1991, and once again endorses an attribution to Judith Leyster, dating it to circa 1631- 33. She notes that the picture relates to a group of five paintings (not all by Leyster) that may have once formed a cohesive series of half-length images of adolescents, each engaged in an activity clearly associated with one of the five senses.¹  For example, the sense of smell is a young girl sniffing a flower while holding a basket of flowers, the sense of taste is a young boy smoking and holding a roemer of wine, while this painting represents the sense of sight.

Dennis Weller also endorses an attribution of Boy peering into an earthenware tankard  to Leyster. He most recently addressed the aforementioned series and the relationship between each painting in print, writing that while linked by theme, size, and general technique, each picture is certainly not by the same hand.²  Old photographs of all five suggest that they were in the collection of Arthur Kay around 1930.  Weller attributes Hearing, Touch (both in the Phoenix Art Museum), and Smell (Cynthia von Bogendorf Rupprath collection) to Jan Miense Molenaer, Leyster's husband, and exhibited them as such in his recent exhibition on Molenaer (see Exhibited). He sees the present panel, however, as more clearly a work by Leyster from the 1630's, when both she and Molenaer shared a similar working method. He notes that Sight is one of  the most accomplished of the group, while adding that it is unclear if all five were originally conceived as a group, or joined together at a later date.  

The works of both Jan Miense Molenaer and Judith Leyster have been associated with Frans Hals as well as with the work of his younger brother, Dirck. Dirck Hals executed a number of paintings of The Five Senses--both as sets of individual paintings and several with the entire theme in a single painting. A full set of five paintings of the Five Senses, each signed and dated 1637 and each with three figures by Molenaer is in the Mauritshuis, The Hague. There is not an extant full set of the senses by Frans Hals or Judith Leyster although each of these artists painted works related to the theme.

That none of the five paintings in this set of the Five Senses is signed (by any artist) yields no information as many of Leyster’s works were unsigned. Of the forty-four autograph paintings listed in Frima Fox Hofrichter's catalogue raisonné, only twelve are signed, most to the 1630s, her most prolific period.

The ruff and open chemise of the boy depicted here are very similar to those in another unsigned panel by Leyster, A Young Violinist with skull, which Dr.  Hofrichter dates to circa 1633 (Bristol, City Art Gallery see F. F. Hofrichter, Judith Leyster. Woman Painter in Holland's Golden Age, Doornspijk 1989, cat. no. 30 reproduced plate 30. The face and hands of the young violinist are also similar in handling to their equivalents in the present picture, and the neutral dark background of both pictures is characteristic of Leyster at this date. Furthermore, the brilliant red coloring, handling of the paint in the loose brushwork of the shirt, jug and fingers as well as the placement and angle of the body, suggest the work of Leyster.

The youth here is portrayed as a Kannekijker - literally a " can looker”- curiously and certainly hopefully, peering into his tankard to see if he has anything left to drink. This was a popular genre subject, especially in Haarlem where beer was a major commodity, and such a sighting of a young man may well have been typical. Leyster herself executed two works on this theme, a 1629 example in the Rijksmuseum (on loan to the Frans Halsmuseum) and a circa 1629 example on loan to the Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum, Aachen.

We are grateful to Dr. Frima Fox Hofrichter and Dennis Weller for their assistance in the cataloguing of this lot. 

1. The series is discussed at some length in D.P. Weller, Jan Miense Molenaer:  Painter of the Dutch Golden Age, exhibition catalogue, Raleigh, N.C. 2002, cat. no. 3.
2. Ibid.