Pieter de Hooch

Rembrandt van Rijn and Carel Fabritius as role models for Pieter de Hooch

Pieter de Hooch was born probably in 1629 with his christening recorded on the 20 December 1629 in the Reform Church of Rotterdam. He came from a family without artistic characteristics; his father worked as a mason and his mother as a midwife. His four younger siblings died early, but further facts about his childhood and youth are barely known. According to the esteemed artist biographer Arnold Houbraken, Pieter de Hooch - along with Jacob Lucascz and others - was a student of the famous landscape painter Nicolaes Berchem in Haarlem. Apart from this biographical note by Houbraken, there is nothing in Hooch’s work which points to a stylistic influence from Berchem, which is why other voices were raised in the research who wanted to see de Hooch’s teacher, the Rotterdam master Ludolf de Jongh, to whose style at least the early work of de Hooch shows certain similarities. Ultimately, this question remains open, but it is sure that Pieter de Hooch’s further artistic development came under the influence of Rembrandt van Rijn and Carel Fabritius.

Masterly depictions of quiet interiors and small gatherings

At some unknown point, Pieter de Hooch moved to Delft where he is noted in a testament as a witness in 1652, and in 1655 obtained membership of the local painters’ guild. There he married Jannetge van der Burch, the sister of his student Hendrick van der Burch, and together they had seven children. Pieter de Hooch specialised in the depiction of interiors with ladies and gentlemen quietly engaged, shown in the most realistic perspective possible, and displaying particular skill in the use of light. He had some success as a genre painter and his pictures sold for high prices; his most important buyer was the rich Delt businessman Justus de la Grange who named at least eleven works by Pieter de Hooch as his property. De Hooch often also painted domestic scenes for which he used his own family life as a model. 

Artistic success in Amsterdam; final years in spiritual derangement

Pieter de Hooch shared various motifs and compositions with Emanuel de Witte and many connoisseurs are convinced that he also influenced the art of Jan Vermeer. In the early 1660s, the de Hooch family moved to Amsterdam where the painter initially lived in a poor suburb, despite many wealthy clients. Here one of his most famous paintings, The Mother, was created, which can be admired today in the Berlin Painting Gallery. A further work, Woman Reading, which had long been attributed to de Hooch, was actually by Pieter Janssens Elinga. Despite his success in Amsterdam, the Delft years are considered the heyday of the talented painter.

Pieter de Hooch spent his final years in a care home for the mentally unwell; the exact date of his death is unknown, but his funeral is attested for 24 March 1684 in Amsterdam.