Pieter De Hooch was born in Rotterdam, Holland in 1629. He was the son of a bricklayer and a midwife Little is known of de Hooch's early history; he was a pupil of Nicolaes Berchem. It is said that he was at first unable to earn his living as a painter, and worked as a servant until he had the opportunity to paint. In 1654 he married and settled in Delft.

De Hooch had a very close association with Vermeer, and much of his painting was similar to Vermeer's. De Hooch does not astonish us, as Vermeer does, by sheer brilliance in applying paint, but he pleases us by his great competence in dealing with every pictorial aspect of his chosen art of genre painting, and gives us...