In the morning of 28 October there will be three brief lectures presented on the research that led up to the exhibition. Afterwards there is a Q&A session led by David de Haan. Please see below for the abstracts.

Anita Jansen

Senior Curator of Old Master Paintings, Museum Prinsenhof, Delft
There is not much known about the apprenticeship of the Rotterdam-born Pieter de Hooch. At first De Hooch paints military and tavern scenes, which are often regarded as being influenced by Rotterdam artists, particularly Ludolf de Jongh (1616-1679). Anita Jansen proposes that the early work of De Hooch must highly likely have been situated in Delft. She will explain how the genre works of the local Delft artist Anthonie Palamedesz. (1602-1673) have played an important role in establishing this idea.

Frans Grijzenhout

Professor Art History, University of Amsterdam
Genre painter De Hooch painted a number of family portraits in his career. Today about four are still known. Only of one of these, the identity of the sitters can be determined with certainty. This has not yet been accomplished for the other three. One of these is the Portrait of an Unknown Delft Family (Gemäldegalerie der Akademie der bildenden Künste, Vienna) from ca. 1657. Frans Grijzenhout will talk about his search for the identity of this family from Delft and how he put the painting in the context of other family portraits by De Hooch.

Anna Krekeler

Paintings Conservator at the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam
In the run-up to the exhibition, Anna Krekeler has conducted extensive technical research on sixteen paintings by Pieter de Hooch, including the works in the collection of the Rijksmuseum. This has been further supplemented with technical information from other paintings by De Hooch that was shared by (international) museums. This has led to a better understanding of the techniques and materials used by De Hooch and also allows for a better comparison of De Hooch’s methods to that of his contemporaries.