Portrait de groupe d'une famille ou compagnie inconnue

Around 1658 Pieter de Hooch was living in Delft and painting the thing he did better than almost anyone, ordinary Dutch people in sunlit brick courtyards, with a doorway or a low wall opening onto more space beyond. Here a whole family, or perhaps a company, has gathered in such a courtyard. Elders sit at a table set with grapes and peaches, others stand about, and one man is already walking off through the garden. Over the rooftops rises the tower of the Nieuwe Kerk, the church at the heart of Delft. For a long time no one knew de Hooch had made it. When a count gave the picture to the Vienna academy in 1821, it was catalogued as a work by Gerard ter Borch, another Dutch master, and it kept that wrong name for years.