HOOCH, Pieter de
(b. 1629, Rotterdam, d. 1684, Amsterdam)

Maid with a Broom and a Pail in a Sunlit Courtyard

1660-61
Oil on canvas, 48 x 42 cm
Staatliche Kunsthalle, Karlsruhe

In seventeenth-century Holland everyday life and its activities were seen as virtues and became popular subjects for works of art. Among these highly valued activities were the housewife's duties of nursing the children, cooking and cleaning the house, the street outside and the courtyard.

In the present painting by Pieter de Hooch everything is spotless. Apart from a couple of hens pecking at the ground, all is calm, silent and harmonious. The young woman, probably a maidservant, stands motionless, a broom and a pail in her hands. Behind her, in the middle ground, is an open gate in the fence which leads to the house; on the left another open door leads to a view of a landscape with high trees, the silhouette of a city and an expanse of blue water.