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

Figures Drinking in a Courtyard

1658
Oil on canvas, 68 x 58 cm
National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh

In the period from about 1657 until 1660, when De Hooch gradually refined his mature style in Delft, he produced several pairs of closely related pictures, in at least two instances straightforward replicas of a composition. There is an autograph replica of this picture in the Mauritshuis, The Hague.

This painting is related to the Courtyard of a House in Delft (National Gallery, London). Both canvases are dated 1658 and show approximately the same rear corner of a brick house, although there are differences between even the most similar motifs.