ABSTRACT
In terms of personal safety, the domestic space is an ambivalent one, and this has a lot do to with its (in)visibility. This chapter explores some early modern depictions of the domestic sphere and how they informed a culture of (in)visibility based on particular gender roles. Whereas etchings by Abraham Bosse and paintings by Jan Steen theatrically promulgate domestic disorder for the beholders’ entertainment and instruction, Pieter de Hooch’s household scenes purport a disturbing sense of absorption and suspense. His paintings embrace strands of Christian iconography that serve to reformulate an aesthetic as well as cognitive relation between domestic security and female virginity, guided by dichotomies such as firmly closed versus widely open, invisible versus visible.
