The glass of wine 1660

Johannes Vermeer painted ‘The Glass of Wine’ in the Netherlands around 1658-1660. It depicts a scene of bourgeois domesticity, a popular subject in the Dutch Golden Age. But there’s more here than meets the eye. The painting speaks volumes about gender roles and social expectations. The woman, dressed in a fine satin dress, sits passively as the man offers her wine. Wine, then as now, had strong associations with love and seduction. The coat of arms in the window and the expensive rug on the table subtly signal the family’s aspirations to climb the social ladder. To understand the painting fully, we can look at period literature, conduct research into the customs of courtship, and explore the economic conditions that enabled the rise of the Dutch middle class. The image serves as a mirror reflecting the values and anxieties of its time. The historian's role is to decipher this visual language and reveal its cultural meaning.