Pieter de Hooch

Pieter de Hooch (1629 - 1684) was a genre painter during the Dutch Golden Age. He was a contemporary of Dutch Master Jan Vermeer, with whom his work shared themes and style.

De Hooch was born in Rotterdam and was the son of a bricklayer. He studied art in Haarlem, later moving to Delft to work as a servant and painter for a linen-merchant. He was married in 1654, became a member of the Delft guild in 1655 and then moved to Amsterdam around 1660.

The early work of de Hooch is mostly composed of scenes of soldiers in stables and taverns, but after beginning his family in the mid-1650s (to eventually have seven children), he switched his focus to domestic scenes and family portraits. These paintings often had a treatment of light similar to Vermeer's, and art historians in the 19th century had assumed that Vermeer had been influenced by de Hooch's work—the opposite is now believed. Some scholars believe that de Hooch's work after around 1670 became more stylized and later deteriorated in quality.

De Hooch died in 1684 in an Amsterdam insane asylum.

There are currently 84 paintings attributed to de Hooch.

Paintings by Pieter de Hooch include:

• Barn with Three Soldiers and Innkeeper (c. 1650-1655)
• A Boy Bringing Bread (c. 1650-1665)
• The Courtyard of a House in Delft (1658)
• A Woman Peeling Apples (c. 1663)
• Figures in a Courtyard (c. 1663-1665)

External link

• Complete list of known works