Pieter de Hooch was one of the first Dutch genre painters to make a specialty of domestic imagery. Here the elegantly dressed mistress of the household performs needlework as a maidservant, about to depart with a marketing basket, holds the hand of a toddler wearing a valhoed (a cap with a cushioned brim to prevent injury). In characteristic fashion De Hooch employs tall windows with leaded glass and gentle contre-jour illumination to frame and highlight his image of domestic virtue - an ideal which accords well with Dutch seventeenth century manuals of social conduct by Jacob Cats and others. Domestic subjects had first appeared in de Hooch's works from his years in Delft in the 1650's, but this painting is probably from his later years in Amsterdam; while Valentiner (loc. cit., no. 110) dated the painting 'ca. 1670-73', Sutton (loc. cit., no. 145) suggested a later date of ca. 1680, comparing its style and figure types to those of De Hooch's Woman with Serving Girl, Palais des Beaux-Arts, Lille, Inv. no. P304, which bears the remnants of a date that probably originally was 1680 (see Sutton ibid., no. 143, pl. 146). This painting or a smaller version of it appeared in the M. d'Herbouville sale in Paris, May 26, 1829, lot 19 (with dimensions 54 x 51cm.).