Hidden and Unremembered: The Misattributions of the Seventeenth-Century Works by Judith Leyster, Clara Peeters and Rachel Ruysch
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Date
2022
Authors
Ritchie, Morning Glory
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Publisher
University of Oregon
Abstract
Focusing on the genre painting of Clara Peeters, Judith Leyster and Rachel Ruysch, this thesis will contextualize the misattribution of their works to contemporaneous male painters and explain the ramifications of these misattributions for the field of art history. In some cases, works made by Peters and Leyster, or other female Dutch Baroque artists, are attributed to prominent male artists such as Frans Snyders or Frans Hals. Art connoisseurs and collectors also attributed works by female painters to their husbands or fathers, as was the case for several works by Leyster. Given the likely role of a woman in early modern patriarchal society, I will consider how the gendered subjects of still-life works, which include compositions which feature the interior domestic household, suggest female authorship. To complement the analysis of female artists from northern Europe, this paper also considers some of the gender issues of biography of women, acknowledging figures like Artemisia Gentileschi, an artist whose modern fame derives largely from her biography as a victim of rape. By examining the history of connoisseurship in the seventeenth century—when art dealers cultivated a clientele drawn from the Grand Tour in Europe—my thesis demonstrates that dealers faced increasing motivation to raise the purchase price of paintings by assigning them to well-known male artists, as buyers were both gullible and indifferent to the details of a work’s creation. I then follow connoisseurship practices up to the present, ultimately tracing the connection between connoisseurship and the art historical understanding of the seventeenth-century women artists' role in history. These three women artists, prominent during their time, are under-explored in scholarship as well as the history of their loss in reputation which this paper examines. Seeking to answer why many of these misattributions took so long to come to light, this paper explores the reattribution process for paintings by Peeters and Leyster, considers the possible catalysts for these reattributions, and shows why it is important to bring long overdue recognition to these women artists.
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Keywords
Art History, Misattribution, Clara Peeters, Judith Leyster, Rachel Ruysch