Domestic Interior Scene

Artist: Pieter De Hooch

Year: 1665

Technique: Oil on canvas, 70 × 75.5 cm

Type: interior

Form: painting

Location: Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

History of the painting

1726: sale of the collection of Baron Lockhorst at an unknown auction house, Amsterdam
16 October 1793: sale of the collection of Joachim Rendorp at an unknown auction house, Amsterdam
9 July 1794: bought by Cochers at the sale of the collection of Joachim Rendorp at an unknown auction house, Amsterdam
date unknown: acquired by Smith
1828: acquired by Stanley
by 16 October 1928: Six, Amsterdam
16 October 1928: bought by the Vereniging Rembrandt, The Hague, at the sale of the collection Six at an unknown auction house, Amsterdam
date unknown: ownership transferred to the City of Amsterdam by the Vereniging Rembrandt
date unknown: lent to the Amsterdams Historisch Museum, inv.no. SA 7336, Amsterdam
1975: lent to the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, inv.no. SK-C-1191, Amsterdam, by the City of Amsterdam

Pieter de Hooch (also known as "Hoogh" or "Hooghe") was a Dutch genre painter of the Delft school during the Dutch Golden Age and known for his interior scenes and use of light. Pieter was a pupil of Claes Berchem at Haarlem. From 1653 he was in the service of Justus de Grange and lived in Delft, The Hague, and Leiden. From 1654 to 1657 he was a member of the painter’s guild of Delft, but after that date there are no traces of his career until about 1667, when his presence was recorded in Amsterdam.

He moved to Delft, temporarily in 1652, and on a more permanent basis in 1654/5. Here he would have come across the pioneering church interiors of architectural painters such as Gerard Houckgeest, Emanuel de Witte and Hendrick de Vliet, whose use of multi-point perspective and diagonal views coupled with an interest in light and atmosphere resulted in interiors of great naturalism and informality. Here too he is likely to have seen the work of Carel Fabritius, the talented pupil of Rembrandt, whose originality was praised by his contemporaries but who tragically died in the explosion of the Delft powder magazine in 1654. He preferred painting two or three figures occupied with humble daily duties in a sober interior, the still atmosphere of which is broken only by the radiant entry of outdoor light illuminating the scene, this is clearly evident in ‘Interior with women beside a linen chest’. These depictions of the serene simplicity of Dutch domestic life are free of sentimentality. Largely done between about 1655 and 1663 while de Hooch was living in Delft, they are considered his best works. In them he was preoccupied with the relation of light to different surfaces, the effect of enclosures and apertures on light intensity, the variation of tone, the complex arrangement of spatial units, and linear perspective. De Hooch s decision to leave Delft was no doubt prompted by the prospect of a larger market for his paintings in the thriving commercial centre of Amsterdam. Here he responded to a wealthier, more aspirational clientele, by increasingly producing pictures depicting more sumptuously dressed figures in more luxurious interiors, and painting on a larger scale than he had tended to do in Delft. Although an unevenness and later falling off in quality characterises the Amsterdam period, from his arrival in the city through into the mid-1670s de Hooch was still capable of painting individual pictures that rival the best works of his Delft years.

Information from: Lib-Art