THE HAGUE.- A mysterious soldier who vanished from a painting by Pieter de Hooch centuries ago has returned to the scene following an extensive restoration at the Mauritshuis.

The figure can now be seen once again in A Courtyard with a Smoking Man and a Drinking Woman, painted around 1658–60. The work shows a woman raising a glass to her lips as a man smokes nearby, with a child standing in a sunlit courtyard of the kind for which De Hooch became famous.

For generations, the scene appeared to show an ordinary pause in daily life. But the abandoned objects on the table told a different story. A pipe and an open beer tankard seemed to belong to no one, while a cloak hung inexplicably over a nearby railing.

Research revealed that the composition had originally included a third adult: a soldier dressed in armor and holding a large beer mug. At some point between the 17th and early 19th centuries, an unknown person painted over him.

His rediscovery left the Mauritshuis with a difficult decision. Should conservators conceal the figure again, return him in full detail or leave him visible only as a ghostly trace beneath the surface?

After years of technical research and discussion, the museum chose a middle path. The soldier has been brought back into the composition, but in a restrained form that allows him to take his place in the story without overwhelming the rest of the painting.

A drinking game hidden in plain sight

The soldier’s return changes the meaning of the scene.

Without him, the painting seemed to depict a man and woman sharing a quiet break. With the third figure restored, it becomes clear that the woman is participating in a drinking game.

She holds a type of glass known as a pasglas, marked with horizontal lines that indicated how far a participant was expected to drink during each turn. The two men appear to be encouraging her to continue to the next line.

The Mauritshuis was able to reconstruct the scene because De Hooch painted another version of almost exactly the same composition. That work, A Dutch Courtyard, is in the collection of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.

In the Washington painting, the soldier is clearly visible between the smoking man and the woman, smiling as she raises the glass. The comparison provided conservators with a crucial visual guide, showing not only the missing figure’s position but also his clothing, posture and role in the scene.

The existence of two nearly identical versions was not unusual in the 17th century, when artists and workshops sometimes repeated successful compositions for different patrons.





Why not restore him completely?

Conservators Sabrina Meloni and Abbie Vandivere worked together on the reconstruction. Their challenge was not simply to recreate the soldier, but to determine how strongly he should appear.

Over approximately 360 years, some of the pigments in the Mauritshuis painting have changed color. A fully detailed reconstruction based on the brighter Washington version would therefore have made the soldier appear too prominent and visually separate from the older paint around him.

The conservators instead created a softer, less detailed version. The figure is visible enough to restore the original narrative, but subdued enough to remain part of the painting rather than becoming its dominant feature.

The intervention is also reversible. The materials added during the restoration can be removed by future conservators without damaging the surviving original paint.

That principle leaves open the possibility that later generations may interpret the work differently or develop new conservation methods.

A figure uncovered, photographed and hidden again

The soldier’s existence had not been entirely forgotten.

During restoration work in the 1920s, the prominent Dutch conservator Martin de Wild uncovered the figure beneath the overpaint. He photographed the discovery in black and white, but then covered the surviving remains again.

The painting entered the Mauritshuis collection in 1947 and continued to be displayed without the soldier. His accessories, however, remained visible, leaving the composition subtly unresolved.

Modern imaging technology allowed the museum to investigate the hidden figure in far greater detail. The research included Macro-XRF scanning, or macro X-ray fluorescence spectrometry, carried out with the Rijksmuseum. The technique can identify chemical elements in pigments and help reveal forms concealed beneath later layers of paint.

Although the analysis clarified the soldier’s appearance, it could not solve the larger historical mystery.

Who erased the soldier—and why?

The museum knows that De Hooch did not remove the figure himself. It also knows that the soldier had disappeared by 1833, when the painting was listed in a catalogue of the John Smith Gallery in London without any mention of him.

The gallery had owned the work since 1822, meaning the alteration must have occurred sometime between around 1660 and the early 19th century.

The reason remains unknown.

A later owner may have wanted to distinguish the painting from De Hooch’s second version. Someone may have disliked the drinking-game subject or preferred a quieter domestic scene. The removal could even have been connected to the identity or appearance of the soldier, although no evidence has emerged to support any particular theory.

For now, the unanswered questions remain part of the painting’s history.

A Courtyard with a Smoking Man and a Drinking Woman is temporarily on view in Gallery 15 of the Mauritshuis. It will remain there until the museum closes from August 24 through September 20, after which it will travel to Madrid for the exhibition Mauritshuis ♥ Thyssen-Bornemisza.

The restored painting now offers visitors two stories at once: the convivial courtyard scene De Hooch originally painted and the centuries-long mystery of the man someone decided to erase.