The Wine Glass

A woman has just emptied her glass, and the man beside her already holds the jug, ready to pour again. Above them, in the stained glass, Temperance keeps watch. Vermeer, about 27, turns a quiet drink into a scene full of tension.

The story behind the painting

The Wine Glass, also called Lady and Gentleman Drinking Wine, is an oil on canvas by Johannes Vermeer, now in the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin. Wikipedia dates it to about 1660, while Wikidata gives only the 1650s. Vermeer was about 27 when he painted it. The idea of figures drinking around a table, and of a woman drinking from a glass, comes directly from Pieter de Hooch's A Dutch Courtyard, part of the Delft genre tradition De Hooch developed in the late 1650s.

What to look for

The figures sit in the middle ground of a bright, spacious room with clearly defined architecture, not in the usual foreground. Look at the signs of wealth: fine clothes, a patterned tablecloth, a gilded frame on the back wall and a coat of arms in the stained glass window. A cittern lies on a chair with music books. The faces and clothes are painted with wide, smooth outlines, while the tablecloth and the window glass get especially fine, linear strokes. The canvas measures about 67.7 by 79.6 cm.

Meaning and intent

The scene likely shows some kind of courtship, but the roles are unclear. The woman has just drained her glass and the man seems impatient to pour more, almost as if trying to get her drunk. A musical instrument and music books wait on the chair, hinting at pleasures beyond the wine. The figure of Temperance in the window adds to the tension. Compared with De Hooch, Vermeer moves the scene into a far more elegant, higher-class world.

Legacy

The critic Walter Liedtke wrote that no analysis of conventions can capture its sheer beauty and refinement, and called it possibly one of Vermeer's first fully mature works. Others see it as an early, transitional piece; Lawrence Gowing, comparing it with Gabriel Metsu's The Duet, found it lacking in sociable fluency. Its tiled floor and stained glass return in The Girl with the Wine Glass, and the same wine pitcher appears in A Girl Asleep.