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Pieter de Hooch, 'A Musical Party in a Courtyard', 1677

About the work

A small group of people meet to make music and enjoy each other’s company. We look over the back of a chair to see a young woman playing the violin. A second man smiles at the young woman sitting at her ease on the right. Pieter de Hooch has picked out her jewels, but without ostentation: a pearl necklace, long earrings and the ornament in her hair.

De Hooch has given hardly any architectural detail to the courtyard in which they sit. We know by the dress of the occupants and the expensive Turkish carpet on the table that this is a sophisticated establishment, but we have little idea of their surroundings. Instead, he has given prominence to the houses seen across the canal and to the enigmatic figure in the archway who looks over at them.

Key facts

Full title
A Musical Party in a Courtyard
Artist
Pieter de Hooch
Artist dates
1629 - after 1684
Date made
1677
Medium and support
oil on canvas
Dimensions
83.5 × 68.5 cm
Inscription summary
Signed; Dated
Acquisition credit
Bought, 1916
Inventory number
NG3047
Location
Room 17
Collection
Main Collection
Frame
18th-century English Frame

About this record

If you know more about this painting or have spotted an error, please contact us. Please note that exhibition histories are listed from 2009 onwards. Bibliographies may not be complete; more comprehensive information is available in the National Gallery Library.

More works by Pieter de Hooch

A Man with Dead Birds, and Other Figures, in a Stable
A Man with Dead Birds, and Other Figures, in a Stable
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A dog sniffs at a heap of dead birds on the floor, but the focus of this quiet scene seems to be on the young woman cradling her baby. She looks down at the creatures, her expression shuttered. The picture was originally quite different: beneath the birds, which were added during the nineteenth c...
Not on display
A Woman and her Maid in a Courtyard
A Woman and her Maid in a Courtyard
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We seem to be looking at a scene just outside a kitchen. A maid has brought a steaming cauldron out from the kitchen stove and placed it near the open drain in the courtyard. Apparently obeying her mistress, who stands in front of her, she seems to have taken the fish out of the cooking pot; perh...
Room 16
A Woman Drinking with Two Men
A Woman Drinking with Two Men
Pieter de Hooch
There is mystery in this room. One of the figures has her back to us, so we can’t see the expression on her face. But since the man behind the table seems to be using two clay pipes as a pretend violin and bow, and his companion gestures as though conducting a duet, she may be singing.Scenes left...
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The Courtyard of a House in Delft
The Courtyard of a House in Delft
Pieter de Hooch
In the sunlight of a quiet afternoon this courtyard seems to radiate tranquillity. Everything is still, including the figures: a young maid, clean and calm, who holds the hand of a little girl, and the shadowy figure of a woman in the passageway to the left, presumably the child’s mother, who tur...
Room 16