Year 1658-1660 Created 1658–1660 Periods Baroque, Dutch Golden Age | Artist Pieter de Hooch Media Oil paint | |
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Dimensions 52.5 cm × 61 cm (20.7 in × 24 in) Location Amsterdam Museum on loan to the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam Website Amsterdam Collection online Similar Pieter de Hooch artwork, Artwork at Rijksmuseum | ||
A Mother's Duty (1658–1660) is an oil on canvas painting by the Dutch painter Pieter de Hooch, it is an example of Dutch Golden Age painting and is part of the collection of the Amsterdam Museum, on loan to the Rijksmuseum.
This painting by Hooch was documented by Hofstede de Groot in 1910, who wrote; "71. MOTHER COMBING HER CHILD'S HAIR. Sm. 33, 4, 67 ; de G. 5. In a homely bedroom sits a woman in profile to the right. She wears a fur-trimmed jacket, and is combing the hair of a little girl who stands before her. Behind her is a wooden bed with curtains ; a child's chair stands in the right foreground. The door on the left, near which is a little dog, opens into a second room, through the door of which is seen a garden with slender trees. This is one of the finest pictures by De Hooch in Holland. [Compare 74.] Signed on the chair " Pr d' hooch"; canvas on panel, 21 inches by 24 inches. Wrongly attributed to E. Boursse in the 1887 catalogue of the Rijksmuseum ; the signature is absolutely genuine, and is wrongly described as doubtful in the 1905 catalogue.
Sales:
Now in the Rijksmuseum at Amsterdam, Van der Hoop bequest ; No. 1250 in the 1905 catalogue (formerly No. 685)."
This painting seems to have been a successful design for De Hooch as there are several variations on the subject of this bedroom and its doorway outside: