_Pieter de Hooch_ (Dutch: 1630-about 1677).
Hooch (or Hooghe)--"the indoor Cuyp," as he has been called,
and "one of the glories of the Dutch School--is also one of
the glories of England," for it was here that his great merits
were first discovered, and that three-fourths of his pictures
are now preserved. "There are," says Ruskin (_Modern Painters_,
vol. v. pt. ix. ch. viii. § 11), whilst tracing the general
insensitiveness of the Dutch School, "deeper elements in De
Hooghe, sometimes expressed with superb quiet painting." He
chose the simplest subjects and used apparently the simplest
means. But his figures are always placed with the utmost
skill, and the details, so carefully wrought, are all made
contributory to the general idea of the picture. In producing
an effect of serenity, Hooch is unsurpassed. Of his life
nothing is known except that he was at Delft 1653-56, and that
afterwards he resided at Amsterdam. In his own country, a fine
picture by him so late as 1765 brought only 450 florins. In
1817 it fetched 4000 florins, whilst in 1876 the Berlin Gallery
paid £6000 for one of his pictures. At the Secrétan Sale in
1889 an "interior" by De Hooch fetched £11,040. The present
picture was bought in Paris in 1869 for £1722. No. 834 fetched
in 1804, £220; No. 835, in 1810, £187.
The whole picture, in its cheerful colour and dainty neatness, seems
to reflect the light of a peaceful and happy home, in which everything
is done decently and in order. They are no rolling stones, these Dutch
burghers, but stay-at-home folk, whose pride is in the trimness of
their surroundings. Every day, one thinks, the good housewife will thus
look to see that the dinner is duly prepared; every day the husband
will thus walk along the garden, sure of her happy greeting. The
picture is signed, and dated 1665.