This Dutch Painting Showed a 17th-Century Drinking Game Until Someone Smudged Out a Player, Spoiling the Fun. A Museum Just Restored the Imbibing Soldier
Pieter de Hooch was known for his 17th-century portrayals of domestic life. Some scenes suggested scandal or taught a moral
A painting from the 17th century by Dutch artist Pieter de Hooch once featured a soldier drinking beer alongside a man smoking and a woman taking a swig of beer in a courtyard. However, at some point, the soldier was painted out, obscuring the scene and altering its meaning. The Mauritshuis art museum in the Netherlands recently restored the painting to its original form, renaming it Figures in a Courtyard.
The addition of the soldier makes the scene more explicit, suggesting a drinking game where the woman is drinking from the central glass, while the two men refrain. During the Dutch Golden Age in the 1600s, the Netherlands was a powerful empire, and artists like de Hooch produced works that were highly sought after by citizens. The decision to remove the soldier may have been driven by a desire for modesty or to make the painting more valuable.
It wasn't until the 1920s that a restorer named Martin de Wild discovered the missing figure and took a photograph of it before touching up the painting in a way that concealed the soldier. The restored painting is now displayed at the Mauritshuis, adding a new layer of meaning to the original artwork.
Written by urgent.news from Smithsonian's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
