Pieter de Hooch

Dutch Golden Age painter Pieter de Hooch (1629-1684) mastered intimate domestic interiors with open doorways leading to sunlit courtyards or rooms beyond. His "room-views" depict genteel households with women and children engaged in quiet activities, creating an atmosphere of stillness and intimacy. Art historian Simon Schama called him the provider of "the first sustained image of parental love that European art has shown us." De Hooch was contemporary with Vermeer in Delft's Guild of St. Luke.

De Hooch trained under landscape painter Nicolaes Berchem in Haarlem before working for linen merchant Justus de la Grange, traveling with his patron to The Hague, Leiden, and Delft. He joined the Delft painters' guild in 1655, two years after Vermeer. His finest work dates from the late 1650s and early 1660s when he lived in Delft and early Amsterdam. His masterpiece The Courtyard of a House in Delft hangs at the National Gallery in London. Other important works are at the Rijksmuseum and the National Gallery of Art in Washington. Contrary to legend, de Hooch did not die in a lunatic asylum; records show that was his son.