Pieter de Hooch

Pieter de Hooch (also Pieter de Hoogh; 1629-1684), Dutch painter of domestic scenes from Dutch life. He was born in Rotterdam. From 1654 he was a member of the Guild of St Luke at Delft, and there he painted his finest works. He was noted for his paintings of distinctive interiors, in which the typical effect is strong sunlight falling into a room and illuminating a standing figure, such as a maidservant, or a family group seated at a table. In these works, enhanced by sharp patterns of golden light, de Hooch captured the simple, expressive gestures of people going about their daily chores. In Dutch genre painting of domestic interiors, de Hooch ranks second only to his great Dutch contemporary, Jan Vermeer.

De Hooch worked in Amsterdam during his later years. Although his subject matter showed little change, his works from this period are generally considered less noteworthy than his superb Delft paintings. His best works are images of precision and order; typically, a doorway in the middleground opens into a well-lit interior in the background, and the composition is a careful harmony between vertical and horizontal planes. Examples of such interior scenes include The Pantry (c. 1658, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam) and The Card Players (1658, Buckingham Palace, London), both of which show some similarity to the work of Vermeer. He also painted courtyard scenes, such as Courtyard of a House in Delft (1658, National Gallery, London).