his birthplace--the exquisite painter Peter de Hooch. According to the
authorities he modelled his style upon Rembrandt and Fabritius, but the
influence of Rembrandt is concealed from the superficial observer. De
Hooch, whose pictures are very scarce, worked chiefly at Delft and
Haarlem, and it was at Haarlem that he died in 1681. If one were put
to it to find a new standard of aristocracy superior to accidents
of blood or rank one might do worse than demand as the ultimate test
the possession of either a Vermeer of Delft or a Peter de Hooch.

One only of Peter de Hooch's pictures is reproduced in this book--"The
Store Cupboard". This is partly because there are, I think, better
paintings of his in London than at Amsterdam. At least it seems to
me that his picture in our National Gallery of the waiting maid is
finer than anything by De Hooch in Holland. But in no other work
of his that I know is his simple charm so apparent as in "The Store
Cupboard". This is surely the Christmas supplement carried out to its
highest power--and by its inventor. The thousands of domestic scenes
which have proceeded from this one canvas make the memory reel; and
yet nothing has staled the prototype. It remains a sweet and genuine
and radiant thing. De Hooch had two fetishes--a rich crimson dress
or jacket and an open door. His compatriot Vermeer, whom he sometimes
resembles, was similarly addicted to a note of blue.

No one has managed direct sunlight so well as De Hooch. The light in
his rooms is the light of day. One can almost understand how Rembrandt
and Gerard Dou got their concentrated effects of illumination; but
how this omnipresent radiance streamed from De Hooch's palette is one
of the mysteries. It is as though he did not paint light but found
light on his canvas and painted everything else in its midst.