HOOCH, Pieter de (Rotterdam, 1629 – Amsterdam, 1684)
The son of a bricklayer and a midwife, Pieter de Hooch (also spelled Hoogh) was baptised in Rotterdam on 20 December 1629. According to the chronicler of artists’ lives, Arnold Houbraken, he was apprenticed to the Italianate landscapist, Nicolas Berchem, at the same time as the genre painter and portraitist, Jacob Ochtervelt. De Hooch is first recorded in Delft in 1652 and the following year he was described as a painter and servant to the linen merchant, Justus de la Grange, whose inventory in 1655 included eleven paintings by De Hooch. De Hooch was living in Rotterdam in 1654 when he married Jannetge van der Burch of Delft, who was probably the sister of the De Hooch follower, Hendrick van der Burch. De Hooch joined the guild in Delft in 1655 and his earliest dated paintings are of 1658, however, since these are mature works his early development is a matter of some conjecture. By April 1661, he had moved to Amsterdam and evidently remained a resident of the city for the remainder of his life. De Hooch died in the Dolhuis (insane asylum) in Amsterdam in 1684. The date and circumstances of his entry into the asylum are unknown.
A painter of genre scenes and portraits, De Hooch is best known for the orderly middle class interiors and sun-filled courtyards that he executed in Delft. After moving to Amsterdam his paintings became more elegant in subject matter and darker in tonality. Less well known are his early guardroom scenes. Although he had no known pupils, De Hooch influenced a number of artists who are sometimes mistakenly called the De Hooch School, including the famous Delft master, Johannes Vermeer.
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