Emery Rutley

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A smiling young child holds the latch of an open wooden door as she looks toward a woman to our right in this almost square painting. The woman and child both have pale skin and stand in a bedroom. To our left, the child is the same height as the door handle, and she faces us. Her blond, upswept hair is backlit, and light falls on her from windows to our left. She turns to look at the woman with dark eyes, a slight smile on her pink lips. She wears a garment with a mauve-gray bodice and sleeves, a sage-green apron over a honey-yellow, ankle-length skirt, and dark shoes. She holds the ring of the door latch with her right hand, to our left, and holds a ball by her side in her other hand. The room has white walls with thick wood beams above, wood molding around the door and window, and a clay-red tiled floor. On the wall to either side of the girl and about the same height as she is, white tiles painted with scenes in azure blue line the walls. Wooden chairs to either side of the door have lion-shaped finials and a diamond pattern on the cloth-covered backs. A landscape painting in a black frame hangs over the door, and a wood table covered with a red cloth, holding a ceramic jug, sits to our left, along the wall coming toward us. The rightmost third of the composition is spanned by a bed set within a ceiling-high, cabinet-like enclosure. The woman stands in front of the bed, her body facing our left in profile. A white kerchief covers her hair and is tied under her chin. She wears a red shirt with white at the chest and cuffs, which are rolled back. A marine-blue skirt falls to her ankles. She holds a brown cloth in front of her, and another cloth is draped over a chair. A gleaming, squat, brown jug sits on floor nearby. A forest-green curtain lines the squared opening to the bed, and another green curtain is pulled to one side of a window next to the open door. Through the door and window, we see a second door across a shallow entryway, which leads outside. Both halves of the outer, Dutch door are open, though the top half swings in a little more than the bottom half. The space beyond has a fence or trellis, green plants, and the edge of a red roof.
Pieter de Hooch, The Bedroom, 1658/1660, oil on canvas, Widener Collection, 1942.9.33

The Bedroom

Pieter de Hooch · 1658/1660 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1942.9.33