A Dutch Courtyard
Pieter de Hooch
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- Art Type: Oil Painting
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Work Overview
- A Dutch Courtyard
Artist Pieter de Hooch
Year 1658-1660
Dimensions 69.5 cm × 60 cm (27.4 in × 24 in)
Location National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
A Dutch Courtyard (1658–1660) is an oil on canvas painting by the Dutch painter Pieter de Hooch, it is an example of Dutch Golden Age painting and is part of the collection of the National Gallery of Art.
This painting by Hooch was documented by Hofstede de Groot in 1910, who wrote:
295. A Courtyard with Two Cavaliers and a Woman Drinking. Sm. Suppl. 30. A view in a courtyard, at the end of which an open door with two steps leads into the garden at the back, the trees in which rise above the low wall. In the left foreground a man who is smoking a pipe sits in profile to the right ; he wears a black coat, a grey cloak, and a black hat. To the right, opposite him at the table, stands a woman drinking a glass of beer ; she wears a yellowish-grey jacket, a red skirt, and a blue apron. Behind the table and between the man and woman sits another man, wearing a cuirass and a hat, who faces the spectator ; he holds a mug in
his hand and looks up with a smile at the woman. From the right a little girl holding a pot comes across the courtyard. In the left background is seen the tower of the Nieuwe Kerk at Delft. The picture agrees exactly with that in the collection of Lady Wantage (297), except that in the Wantage picture the figure of the man behind the table is absent. The figures are unusually small in relation to the space, but the effect of sunlight is delicately rendered. Canvas, 30 1/2 inches by 25 1/2 inches. An old copy was in a Dutch dealer's possession in 1903. Described by Waagen (ii. 130).
Sales:
C. S. Roos, Amsterdam, August 28, 1820, No. 51 (600 or 750 florins, Van Eyk).
(Possibly) S. A. Koopman, Utrecht, April 9, 1847, if Sm. is wrong in saying that it belonged to Baron de Rothschild in 1842. (Compare 299.)
In the possession of Baron L. de Rothschild, 1842 (Sm.).
In the collection of Lionel de Rothschild, London.
Now [in 1910], probably, in the collection of Mr. Alfred de Rothschild.[1]
According to the National Gallery of Art, the provenance of the painting after it was in the collection of Alfred de Rothschild was that it was bequeathed to his illegitimate daughter, Almina Victoria, Countess of Carnarvon. Then it was sold in 1924 to the Duveen Brothers, Inc. Then it was sold in November 1924 to Andrew W. Mellon of Pittsburgh and Washington, D.C., who deeded it 28 December 1934 to The A.W. Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust in Pittsburgh. From there it was gifted in 1937 to the National Gallery of Art.
Pieter de Hooch worked in the small and relatively quiet city of Delft from 1652 to about 1660. Like other Delft artists, most notably Carel Fabritius and Johannes Vermeer, De Hooch painted everyday scenes that are remarkable for their clarity of perspective and harmony of light. He gave order to his compositions by emphasizing the geometry of architectural elements. The positioning of doors, windows and their shutters, floor tiles, and bricks was all carefully calculated and painted.
Women going about their daily chores or attending to visitors, such as the soldiers seen here sitting around a table smoking and drinking, are a frequent theme in De Hooch’s work. The man wearing a breastplate is setting down the pitcher he has used to refill the "pass-glass" held by the woman. The pass-glass was used in drinking games. Each participant had to drink down to a circular line on the glass; failing to reach the exact level, the reveler would be required to drink down to the next ring. Only when this was done successfully would the glass be passed on to the next participant. The little girl carries a brazier of hot coals so that the two soldiers can light their long-stemmed, white clay pipes. Despite its apparent realism, and the presence of the tower of the Nieuwe Kerk in the background, the scene probably does not depict a specific courtyard.
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- Young Woman Drinking
- Woman with a Child in a Pantry
- Woman Reading a Letter
- Woman Peeling Apples
- A Mistress and her Maid
- A Woman and her Maid in a Courtyard
- Figures in a Courtyard behind a House
- Two Soldiers and a Serving Woman with a Trumpeter
- The Visit
- The Morning of a Young man
- The Courtyard of a House in Delft
- The Card Players
- The Bedroom
- Suckling Mother and Maid
- Soldiers Playing Cards
- Ruisdael Jacob Issaksz Van Winter Landscape
- Portrait of a Family in a Courtyard in Delft
- Paying the Hostess
- Musical Party in a Courtyard
- Mother Lacing Her Bodice beside a Cradle
- A Mother’s Duty (Interior with A Mother Delousing her Child’s Hair)
- Figures Drinking in a Courtyard
- De Mother
- Couple with Parrot
- Company Making Music
- Card Players in a Sunlit Room
- Interior with Women beside a Linen Cupboard (At the Linen Closet or Two Women Beside a Linen Chest with a Child)
- A Woman with a Baby in Her Lap and a Small Child
- A Woman Drinking with Two Men and a Serving Woman
- A Man Offering A Glass of Wine to a Woman
- A Dutch Courtyard
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