A Musical Party in a Courtyard, Pieter de Hooch
A small group of people meet to make music and enjoy each other’s company. We look over the back of a chair to see a young woman playing the violin. A second man smiles at the young woman sitting at her ease on the right. Pieter de Hooch has picked out her jewels, but without ostentation: a pearl necklace, long earrings and the ornament in her hair.
De Hooch has given hardly any architectural detail to the courtyard in which they sit. We know by the dress of the occupants and the expensive Turkish carpet on the table that this is a sophisticated establishment, but we have little idea of their surroundings. Instead, he has given prominence to the houses seen across the canal and to the enigmatic figure in the archway who looks over at them.
