Woman and Child in a Courtyard

Pieter de Hooch

National Gallery of Art

A woman and child stand in an enclosed courtyard in this vertical painting. A two-story house rises along the left edge of the painting, and three more people gather at a table set within an enclosure at the far side of the courtyard to our right. All the people have pale skin. At the center of the composition, the woman holds a wide basket propped against a hip with one hand and a white pitcher down by her side with the other. Her hair is covered by a flat black cap that comes to a point high on the forehead. Her brown jacket is worn over a white shirt, which is visible at the neckline. A white apron is gathered and tied up over her long red skirt. She looks down, smiling, at the child at her side, to our right. The child wears a white cap over blond hair, a long brown garment with a wide, white collar, and a white apron. Holding a bird cage with both hands, the child looks off to our left. The courtyard is paved with tan bricks, but a slender tree, the same height as the woman, grows among the pavers in the bottom right of the composition. The corner of the house has a pink rose growing up a trellis, also the same height as the woman, on the side facing the pair. A wooden bucket and clay pot sit at the front corner of the house next to a wider basin on our side. A broom inside the basin leans against the brick wall below a black metal pump with a spout and long handle. Shadows cast by rooflines behind us fall on the second story of the house, which is clad in horizontal wood boards. A flight of stairs past the back corner of the house leads through an open door, which is set into a wall that encloses the far side of the courtyard. A structure with a narrow triangular pediment supported by pairs of pink columns covers a small dining area. Two men and a woman sit with a white pitcher and some food on the table, which is indistinct in the shadows. Across the table from us, the woman wears a black dress with a wide white collar, and she holds a flaring glass with red wine. The two men sitting with their backs angled to us wear tall, wide-brimmed black hats and black suits. The one closer to us holds a long-stemmed white clay pipe to his lips. Deep green canopies of trees peek over the far side of the wall, and the sky above has thin white clouds against a blue sky.