Pieter de Hooch Rotterdam 1629 - 1684 Amsterdam

Hendrick Twent, Burgomaster of Leiden;
His deceased sale, Leiden, Delfos, 11 August 1789, lot 26 (together with its pendant), for 101 florins;
Jonkheer Menno Baron van Coehoorn, The Hague;
His deceased sale, Amsterdam, Van der Schley... Pruyssenaar, 19 October 1801, lot 29, to Coclers (together with its pendant) for 102 florins;
Edward J. Ingraham (according to an old label on the reverse);
Acquired from his sale (date unknown) by Ian B. Yale, U.S.A., no. 115, by the mid-19th century;
With Edward Speelman, London;
From whom acquired by the late father of the present owners in 1961.

London, Dulwich Picture Gallery, and Hartford, Wadsworth Atheneum, Pieter de Hooch, 3 September - 15 November 1998, and 17 December 1998 - 27 February 1999, no. 6.

P. C. Sutton, Pieter de Hooch.  Complete Edition, Oxford, New York 1980, p. 77, cat. no. 13, reproduced plate 12;
P. C. Sutton, Pieter de Hooch, 1629-1684, exhibition catalogue, London, Dulwich Picture Gallery, 3 September - 15 November 1998; and Hartford, Wadsworth Atheneum, 17 December 1998 - 27 February 1999, pp. 98-99, no. 6, reproduced p. 99.

This is an early work by Pieter de Hooch, painted circa 1652-55. It is believed to have been painted as a pendant to a picture depicting Tric-Trac Players, today in the National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin (see fig. 1). Both paintings were in the sale of the Estate of Hendrick Twent, Burgomaster of Leiden, in 1789 and remained together until they were separated some time after the sale of the estate of Baron van Coehoorn at The Hague in 1801. 

Both paintings share strong stylistic and compositional affinities. The handling is broad, rugged and displays a greater freedom than in the artist's paintings from the late 1650s onwards, and the colour schemes consist of white, yellow and greyish brown with accents of red and orange so characteristic of the artist's early phase. The tavern interiors are of a similar design, with a beam over a fireplace on the right of each scene; whilst the standing woman in the present work echoes the standing soldier in the Dublin picture, a similarly attired seated soldier, wearing a brown hat with a cuirass over a yellow doublet, recurs in both works.

These early interiors by De Hooch, painted around the time of his entry into the Guild of Saint Luke in Delft, in 1655, were evidently inspired by the guardroom interiors of Gerard Ter Borch (who was in Delft in 1653), Gerbrand van den Eeckhout and Willem Duyster.