Page:Hofstede de Groot catalogue raisonné, Volume 1, 1908.djvu/567

 iv PIETER DE HOOCH 543 242. Family at Breakfast. A hall paved with marble and adorned with two large curtains opens upon a park, in which are arbours and statues. The master of the house, who wears a dressing-gown, stands with a mug in his right hand and with his left hand upon his breast. His wife, dressed in a black cape over a white silk dress, sits at a table covered with a Turkey carpet. Her little daughter, in a dress of silk, with coloured stripes, plays with a barking dog. A young man-servant brings peaches on a silver salver. A cage with a parrot in it hangs above the table. Canvas, ik> inches by 30! inches. Sale. Baron de Beurnonville, Paris, May 6, 1881, No. 336. 243. A Servant-Girl brings Refreshments to a Person sitting to the Right." Ascribed to P. de Hooch." Panel, 15^ inches by 23^ inches. Sate. Pierre Fontaine, of Ostend, in Brussels, November 28, 1882, No. 50. 243*7. The Breakfast. Sale. At the Hotel Drouot, Paris, March 24, 1883 (3500 francs). 244. Three Figures conversing. At the foot of a great staircase in the entrance hall of a castle. 2O| inches by 26| inches. Sale. C. H. de L. .. ., Brussels, March 4, 1887, No. 53. 245. INTERIOR, WITH A VIEW OF A COURTYARD. Through an open window a girl and a child look into the room. A large window affords a view of a courtyard. On the window-sill stands a bird-cage ; a book, a mug, and a glass are on a table. Panel, 15^ inches by I2| inches. Lent by the executors of the late E. H. Lawrence to the Royal Academy Winter Exhibition, London, 1892, No. 86, and sold soon afterwards. The picture is by the same hand as the picture at Bridgewater House (9) ; this, in turn, resembles closely the early P. de Hooch in the Fleischmann collection (269). It is, therefore, quite possible that the ascription of the work to P. de Hooch in the catalogue of the Winter Exhibition was correct. 246. Interior. In a pleasant room which looks on a charming park a young woman places a dish of fruit on a table covered with a cloth. Outside the window, opening into the garden, a man is seen approaching. It is an attractive little picture painted in a fine golden tone. Signed "P. D. HOOCH" ; panel, 10 inches by 8 inches. Sale. L. von Lilienthal and others, Cologne, December 21, 1893, No. 271. 246*?. The Bearer of Ill-Tidings. In a room paved with stone a nobleman sits at a table, upon which are pieces of armour, a jug of wine, a glass, and other objects. He holds a letter in his right hand and looks at a soldier standing before him. A weeping girl, holding her handkerchief