Pieter de Hooch
Master of light in domestic scenes
Pieter de Hooch was a Dutch Golden Age painter famous for his genre works of quiet domestic scenes with an open doorway. He was a contemporary of Jan Vermeer in the Delft Guild of St. Luke, with whom his work shares themes and style. De Hooch was born in Rotterdam to Hendrick Hendricksz de Hooch, a bricklayer, and Annetge Pieters, a midwife. He was the eldest of five children and outlived all of his siblings. Little is known of his early life and most archival evidence suggests he worked in Rotterdam, Delft, and Amsterdam. According to his first biographer Arnold Houbraken, he studied art in Haarlem under the landscape painter Nicolaes Berchem at the same time as Jacob Ochtervelt and was known for his "kamergezichten" or "room-views" with ladies and gentlemen in conversation. The early work of de Hooch was mostly composed of scenes of soldiers and peasants in stables and taverns in the manner of Adriaen van Ostade, though he used these to develop great skill in light, color, and perspective rather than to explore an interest in the subject matter. After starting his family in the mid-1650s, he switched his focus to domestic scenes. These were possibly of his own family, though his works of well-to-do women breastfeeding and caring for children could also indicate that he had attended his mother on her rounds as a midwife.
Relationship Network
Master student
- Nicolaes Berchem Master
Fellow student
Influenced by
Influenced
Parent child
- Hendrick Hendricksz de Hooch Parent
Artworks by this artist (38 total)
- A Man Smoking and a Woman Drinking in a Courtyard c. 1658 - 1660
- Paying the Hostess ca. 1670
- Interior with Women beside a Linen Cupboard 1663
- Interior with a Young Couple ca. 1662-65
- An interior scene with a woman playing a lute and a man playing a violin
- Interior With A Child Feeding A Parrot 1672
- Woman and Child with Serving Maid 1663-1665
- Woman with a Child in a Pantry c. 1656 - c. 1660
- A Woman peeling Apples c. 1663
- Woman with a Water Pitcher, and a Man by a Bed ca. 1667-70
- A Boy Bringing Bread c. 1663
- Interior of a Dutch house 1686
- A maid with a bucket in a backyard ca 1660
- The Asparagus Vendor 1675-80
- Woman with a Basket of Beans in a Kitchen Garden 1660
- Man Handing a Letter to a Woman in the Entrance Hall of a House 1670
- Interior with a Mother close to a Cradle circa 1665 until 1665
- A Dutch Interior
- Bringer of Bad News circa 1655
- A Couple Playing Cards, with a Serving Woman ca. 1665-75