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
- A Boy Bringing Bread c. 1663
- Mother Nursing Her Child c. 1674-1676
- Interior with Women beside a Linen Cupboard 1663
- Paying the Hostess ca. 1670
- Interior with mother and child, ‘Mother joy’ 1665 - 1668
- Card players at a table
- Woman and Child with Serving Maid 1663-1665
- Interior of a Dutch house 1686
- The Asparagus Vendor 1675-80
- Woman with a Water Pitcher, and a Man by a Bed ca. 1667-70
- Interior with a Young Couple ca. 1662-65
- A Woman and Two Men in an Arbor ca. 1657-58
- A Man Smoking and a Woman Drinking in a Courtyard c. 1658 - 1660
- A Couple Playing Cards, with a Serving Woman ca. 1665-75
- A Dutch Interior
- A maid with a bucket in a backyard ca 1660
- A Music Party 1675
- Man Handing a Letter to a Woman in the Entrance Hall of a House 1670
- Leisure Time in an Elegant Setting ca. 1663-65
- A Woman peeling Apples c. 1663