Regardless, in seventeenth-century Holland, needlework was something all proper women, highborn or low, should do well. Something a well-brought-up woman took pride in. It’s Leyster’s innovation to insert this virtuous activity into a scene of seduction that would usually take place in a brothel or bar. There, the come-on is depicted as welcome, a lark, some fun. But in Leyster’s scene it is unwanted, unacknowledged, and, as the dark shadow implies, sinister. In other words: this scene is from the woman’s point of view.
