HOOCH, PIETER DE (hoch) (I629-after 1683), Dutch painter, born in Rotterdam, and a pupil of N. Berchem at Haar lem. From 1653 he was in the service of Justus de Grange, and lived at Delft, The Hague and Leyden. In 1654 he married a girl of Delft, Jannetje van der Burch. From 16J4 to 1657 he was a member of the painter's gild of Delft, but after that date we have no traces of his doings until about 1667, when his presence is recorded in Amsterdam. His dated pictures prove that he was still alive in 1683. His work shows affinity with the painting of Vermeer, who was a pupil of Carel Fabritius and who was living at Delft at the same period as De Hooch. De Hooch only once painted a canvas of large size, and that unfortunately perished in a fire at Rotterdam in 1864. But his small pieces display perfect finish combined with great power of discrimination. Though he sometimes paints open-air scenes, these are not his favourite sub jects. He is most at home in interiors illuminated by different lights, with the radiance of the day, in different intensities, seen through doors and windows. He thus brings together the most delicate varieties of tone. Sometimes he chooses the drawing room where dames and cavaliers dance, or dine, or sing ; some times-mostly indeed-he prefers cottages or courtyards, where the housewives tend their children or superintend the labours of the cook. Satin and gold are as familiar to him as camlet and fur; and there is no article of furniture in a Dutch house of the middle class that he does not paint with pleasure.
It is possible to bring together over 32o examples of De Hooch. There are three at Leningrad, three in Buckingham Palace, six in the National Gallery, London, two in the Wallace Collection, six in the Amsterdam museum, some in the Louvre ana at Munich and Darmstadt and New York; many others are in private galleries.
See Hofstede de Groot's Catalogue raisonne (1907).