''Merry Company with Two Men and Two Women'', also known as ''The Visit'', is an

oil An oil is any nonpolar chemical substance that is composed primarily of hydrocarbons and is hydrophobic (does not mix with water) & lipophilic (mixes with other oils). Oils are usually flammable and surface active. Most oils are unsaturated ...

-on-panel painting by the

Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...

painter

Pieter de Hooch Pieter de Hooch (, also spelled "Hoogh" or "Hooghe"; 20 December 1629 (baptized) – 24 March 1684 (buried)) was a Dutch Golden Age painter famous for his genre works of quiet domestic scenes with an open doorway. He was a contemporary of ...

, created ''c.'' 1657. It is an example of a Merry Company, a popular form of

genre painting Genre painting (or petit genre), a form of genre art, depicts aspects of everyday life by portraying ordinary people engaged in common activities. One common definition of a genre scene is that it shows figures to whom no identity can be attached ...

Dutch Golden Age painting Dutch Golden Age painting is the painting of the Dutch Golden Age, a period in Dutch history roughly spanning the 17th century, during and after the later part of the Eighty Years' War (1568–1648) for Dutch independence. The new Dutch Republ ...

showing a group of figures, who are not meant to be identified as portraits, enjoying each other's company. It is now in the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

, in New York. The painting was documented by

Hofstede de Groot Cornelis Hofstede de Groot (9 November 1863 – 14 April 1930), was a Dutch art collector, art historian and museum curator. Life He was born in Dwingeloo and spent some time in Switzerland in his youth due to weak lungs, where he learned Germa ...

in 1910, who wrote:

192. TWO LADIES AND TWO GENTLEMEN IN AN INTERIOR.
Sm. __NOTOC__ Sir James Edward Smith (2 December 1759 – 17 March 1828) was an English botanist and founder of the Linnean Society. Early life and education Smith was born in Norwich in 1759, the son of a wealthy wool merchant. He displayed a ...
34. The party are assembled in the left-hand corner of a room, beside a large window, the upper part of which is fastened back. At the left corner of the table stands a girl, pouring out wine; she wears a red jacket trimmed with white fur, a blue skirt, and a large white apron. A young gentleman, wearing a white costume, with a broad collar and a slouch hat, stands behind the table looking at the girl; he leans with his right hand on a chair-back, and holds a pipe in his left. To the right of the table sits a gentleman in a black cape with long curls which conceal his profile; he takes the arm of a girl, who sits beside him and regards him with a watchful and mischievous look. In the right foreground lies his slouch hat. In the background to the right is a bed with curtains; above it hangs a portrait of a man, on the left of which is a map of a Dutch harbour with an inscription. The light falls from the left. It is a good picture, powerful and luminous in the rendering of light and colour. Burger regarded it as a Vermeer; see Gazette des Beaux Arts for 1866, p. 551, No. 14. Panel, 27 inches by 22 1/2 inches. In the collection of Baron Delessert, 1833 (Sm.). Sales. Francois Delessert, Paris, May 15, 1869, No. 36 (150,000 francs). B. Narischkine, Paris, April 5, 1883 (160,000 francs). Secrétan, Paris, July 1, 1889 (270,000 francs). Afterwards in the possession of Durand-Ruel of Paris. Now in the Havemeyer collection in New York.entry 192 for Two Ladies and Two Gentlemen in an Interior
in Hofstede de Groot, 1910

References

External links

Merry company with two men and two women, ca. 1657-1658
in the

RKD The Netherlands Institute for Art History or RKD (Dutch: RKD-Nederlands Instituut voor Kunstgeschiedenis), previously Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie (RKD), is located in The Hague and is home to the largest art history center i ...

MET online
for accession number: 29.100.7 1657 paintings Paintings by Pieter de Hooch Paintings in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art {{17C-painting-stub