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Leisure Time in an Elegant Setting

ca. 1663–65
Not on view
Like his contemporary Johannes Vermeer, Pieter de Hooch played a pioneering role in the advancement of genre painting in seventeenth century Holland. He was especially gifted as a painter of interiors--complex spatial arrangements stunningly beautiful in the manipulation of light. The Lehman picture is richly decorated with a marble floor and gilt-leather wall coverings, articulated by diffuse light from the window at left. The merry dialogue in the near ground is foiled by the mysterious encounter of a young man and elderly bearded figure in the antechamber and vestibule. De Hooch achieves extraordinary clarity and geometry in this grandly furnished chamber, qualities evocative of paintings he made in Amsterdam in the 1660s.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Leisure Time in an Elegant Setting
  • Artist: Pieter de Hooch (Dutch, Rotterdam 1629–1684 Amsterdam)
  • Date: ca. 1663–65
  • Medium: Oil on canvas
  • Dimensions: Extended canvas 22 15/16 x 27 5/16 in. (58.3 x 69.4 cm); original visible painted surface 21 5/8 x 26 in. (55 x 66 cm)
  • Classification: Paintings
  • Credit Line: Robert Lehman Collection, 1975
  • Object Number: 1975.1.144
  • Curatorial Department: The Robert Lehman Collection

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Early 18th-century style Ogee frame, Oak lower moldings; lime upper moldings. Carved, gilt; thin red-orange bole, green patina, metallic reparure., French
Early 18th-century style Ogee frame
French
1850–65
Woman with a Water Pitcher, and a Man by a Bed, Pieter de Hooch Dutch, Oil on canvas
Woman with a Water Pitcher, and a Man by a Bed
Pieter de Hooch
ca. 1667–70
A Couple Playing Cards, with a Serving Woman, Pieter de Hooch Dutch, Oil on canvas
A Couple Playing Cards, with a Serving Woman
Pieter de Hooch
ca. 1665–75
Interior with a Young Couple, Pieter de Hooch Dutch, Oil on canvas
Interior with a Young Couple
Pieter de Hooch
probably ca. 1662–65
A Woman and Two Men in an Arbor, Pieter de Hooch Dutch, Oil on wood
A Woman and Two Men in an Arbor
Pieter de Hooch
ca. 1657–58

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