Artwork
The Wine Glass
The Wine Glass is an oil painting by the Dutch Golden Age artist Johannes Vermeer. It dates from 1659 and is held in the collection of the Gemäldegalerie Berlin.
About this work
Subject & Meaning
Together these elements convey a tension between sensual pleasure and admonition, reflecting the early-mature phase of Vermeer's genre painting.
The work portrays a seated woman raising a wine glass while a standing man prepares to pour more, set in a richly decorated interior with a patterned tablecloth, gilded frame and a stained-glass window bearing a coat of arms. This arrangement functions as a genre scene of courtship, the woman's act of draining the glass suggesting both intimacy and restraint, while the allegorical figure of Temperance in the window adds a moralizing dimension. The meticulous rendering of textiles, the Persian carpet and the cittern on the chair underscore the sitter's genteel status and invite the viewer to assume a voyeuristic stance.
Together these elements convey a tension between sensual pleasure and admonition, reflecting the early-mature phase of Vermeer's genre painting.
Technique & Style
The Wine Glass is an oil painting on canvas, measuring approximately 66.3 by 76.5 cm. Created around 1659, the work displays a refined technique characteristic of Vermeer's early mature period, distinguished by subdued brushwork and wide, smooth outlines defining the figures' faces and clothing. In contrast, the artist applied fine, detailed linear strokes to render the texture of the patterned Persian tablecloth and the stained-glass window. The composition features a brightly lit, spacious interior with figures positioned in the middle ground rather than the foreground, a spatial arrangement influenced by Pieter de Hooch but executed with greater elegance. The scene includes a tiled floor with alternating squares, contributing to the defined architectural space.
History & Provenance
The Wine Glass has belonged to the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin since 1901, when it was purchased for 165,000 marks following the 1898 sale of the Hope Pelham-Clinton collection, in which the London firm P. & D. Colnaghi acquired the work in cooperation with the Kaiser Friedrich Museums-Verein and Berlin banker Robert von Mendelssohn. Berlin's Max J. Friedländer participated in the negotiations, and the painting hung on the Museumsinsel as a loan from 1898 until the purchase was completed. The earliest documented owner is the Delft collection of Jan van Loon, in whose sale on 18 July 1736 the painting was lot number 16, fetching 52 guilders.
By 1785 it was recorded in the estate of Amsterdam banker John Hope (1737–1784), passing through his sons Thomas Hope and Henry Philip Hope, then to Henry Thomas Hope (1808–1862), and eventually to Henrietta Adela Hope, who bequeathed it to her son Henry Pelham-Clinton, 8th Duke of Newcastle-under-Lyme (1866–1941).
In 2000 the painting was lent to the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam for an exhibition on Golden Age painting, exchanged temporarily for Vermeer's Briefleserin in Blau.
Legacy
Vermeer's The Wine Glass is regarded as an early, transitional work that prefigures his mature genre scenes. Critics note its debt to Pieter de Hooch's interior compositions, while its refined treatment of light and texture marks a step toward Vermeer's later style. Contemporary scholarship links the painting to the development of Dutch genre painting, highlighting its role as a prototype for later depictions of courtship and wine-drinking.
The work's iconography, especially the allegorical Temperance motif, has been analysed as a moralizing counterpoint to its seductive subject. Today the painting is part of the Gemäldegalerie Berlin collection and is frequently cited in studies of Vermeer's evolution from apprenticeship to master of Dutch interior painting.
Overview
Johannes Vermeer's painting, The Wine Glass, completed around 1660, depicts a man and a woman engaged in drinking within a domestic interior. This oil-on-canvas work is presently housed in the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin. The composition exemplifies the artist's characteristic attention to light and spatial arrangement, presenting a quiet, intimate scene.
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Artist & collection
Artist
Johannes Vermeer ( vər-MEER, vər-MAIR, Dutch:; see below; also known as Jan Vermeer; October 1632 – 15 December 1675) was a Dutch painter who specialized in domestic interior scenes of middle-class life.
