Eine Frau und ihre Magd in einem Hof

By 1660 the Dutch Republic was the richest corner of Europe, and its painters had started treating an ordinary brick courtyard as a subject worth the same care others gave to saints and kings. Pieter de Hooch worked in Delft, and this is his territory: a mistress and her maid caught mid-task, a steaming pot set down by the drain, a fish being lifted out for the household's meal. Nothing dramatic is happening, which is the point. De Hooch built the scene around light falling across worn brick and a doorway that opens onto a further wall beyond. The little summer house at the back turns up in two of his other courtyards, so he was reworking a corner he knew well into something quietly ordered.