Pieter de Hooch

Background

Pieter de Hooch was born on December 20, 1629, in Rotterdam, Netherlands. He was a son of Hendrick Hendricksz de Hooch, a bricklayer, and Annetge Pieters, a midwife.

Education

Pieter de Hooch studied in Haarlem, Netherlands, under the guidance of Nicolaes Pieterszoon Berchem.

Career

In 1653, Pieter de Hooch was employed as a servant and painter by a cloth merchant and art collector, named Justus de la Grange, in Rotterdam. His early works were mainly crowded scenes of the activities of soldiers in their leisure time.

De Hooch's best works were painted during his residence in Delft, roughly in the years between 1655 and 1662. They clearly belong to the Delft school, with marked resemblances to the mature works of Jan Vermeer. De Hooch's earliest dated pictures are from 1658, and they show him at the height of his powers. His mastery of elaborate spatial construction is exemplified in the "Card Players" (1658), where the rectangles of architectural details and furnishings form an abstract pattern, in which figures are placed with an effect of the most satisfying equilibrium. The view from the interior to outside areas in this painting is the kind of problem in space representation, that characterized de Hooch's works of his Delft period.

The interrelations between de Hooch and his great contemporary in Delft, Vermeer, are not fully understood. They obviously shared an interest in the representation of interior space with figures. De Hooch's style differs from Vermeer's in that his light and colors are warmer, his spatial constructions tend to be more complex and his figures lack the monumental three-dimensionality of Vermeer's. The faces, that de Hooch painted, were particularly lacking in conviction. They are weak in both form and characterization.

In the 1660's and 1670's, de Hooch lived and worked in Amsterdam. He gradually adopted a more upper-class orientation, with greater emphasis on the elaboration of decoration and costumes. From the later 1660's on, his paintings were cold and dry and not above the level of achievement of his generally prosaic followers.

The latest date de Hooch inscribed on a painting was 1684. How long he lived after that is unknown. However, for a long time it was believed, that de Hooch died in 1684 in an asylum. However, in 2008, it turned out, that it was his son, who died in 1684 and whose name was also Pieter.

Achievements

• Pieter de Hooch gained prominence for his genre works of quiet domestic scenes with an open doorway. He was the first to paint genre scenes set in the brick courtyards typical of Dutch middle-class homes.
  
  Today, the painter's works are kept in different museums, art institutions and galleries, including Louvre Museum in Paris, National Gallery of Art, in Washington, D.C., National Gallery in London, Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam and others.

Works

More photos

• painting

  • Woman with basket of beans in the kitchen garden

  • Woman with infant, serving maid with child

  • Woman weighing gold coins

  • A Woman and a Maid in a Courtyard

  • Soldiers Playing Cards

  • Interior with a Mother delousing her Child

  • A Woman Peeling Apples

  • At the Linen Closet

  • Couple with Parrot

  • Woman and Child in a Courtyard

  • Tavern scene with maid trying to fill the glass of a cavalier (The Empty Glass)

  • Interior with Two Gentleman and a Woman Beside a Fire

  • Concert

  • The Council Chamber of the Burgermasters

  • Dutch family

  • Paying the Hostess

  • Woman hands over money to her servant

  • Cardplayers

  • Courtyard of a house in Delft

  • Interior with Figures

  • Woman drinking with soldiers

  • Interior

  • Tric Trac Spieler

  • Woman and a Child in a Pantry

  • A Dutch Courtyard

  • The Visit

  • Two women with a child in court

  • The morning toilet of a young man

  • Woman with a Child and a Maid in an Interior

  • Woman Reading a Letter

  • Happy drinker

  • Mother at the cradle

  • A sick child

  • A Mistress and her Maid

  • Company in garden

  • Man Offering a Glass of Wine to a Woman

  • The Card Players

  • A woman and a child on a Bleichwiese

  • Company Making Music

  • Interior of a Dutch House

  • Portrait of a family of musicians

  • A Musical Conversation

  • The Bedroom

  • Card Players at a Table

  • Nursing mother

  • Going for the Walk

  • A Woman with a Baby in Her Lap, and a Small Child

  • Skittle Players in a Garden

  • The Courtyard of a House in Delft

  • Two Soldiers and a Serving Woman with a Trumpeter

  • A Woman Drinking with Two Men

  • A Musical Party

Membership

Pieter de Hooch was a member of Delft Guild of Saint Luke.

• Guild of Saint Luke , Netherlands

  1655

Connections

In 1654, Pieter married Jannetje van der Burch. Their marriage produced seven children.

Father:

Hendrick Hendricksz de Hooch

Mother:

Annetge Pieters

Wife:

Jannetje van der Burch

mentor:

Nicolaes Pieterszoon Berchem

References

• Pieter de Hooch: A Woman Preparing Bread and Butter for a Boy This book examines the painting "A Woman Preparing Bread and Butter for a Boy" in relation to the artist's life and work, exploring his stylistic development and his complex relationship to other painters in the Dutch Republic. The author places the subject matter of the painting within the broader context of seventeenth-century Dutch concepts of domesticity and child rearing and ties it to social and cultural developments in the Netherlands during the second half of the seventeenth century.
  2007
• Pieter De Hooch
  1980
• 65 Color Paintings of Pieter de Hooch This book includes 65 high quality reproductions of Pieter's greatest masterpieces with title and date.
  2014
• Pieter de Hooch 1629-1684 This book looks at de Hooch's influence on Dutch genre painting, and Vermeer in particular, and discusses the themes and techniques used in his work.
  1998
• Pieter de Hooch: 60+ Baroque Paintings This art book contains more than sixty reproductions of portraits and genre scenes with title, date and interesting facts page below.
  2011