The Girl with a Wineglass

According to Vermeer expert Arthur Wheelock, the careful placing of the upright ancestral portrait between the two male figures focus on the artist's concerns for the lack of moral constraint in contemporary life. The rigid pose and somber treatment of this passage enhances its none-too subtle admonitory message. This was the only time that Vermeer included picture-within-a-picture in one of his works which represents a formal portrait. Judging by the man's costume, it seems to have been painted in the 1630s.

The brooding figure has been somewhat difficult to explain within the context of Vermeer's composition and it is one of the very few openly negative figures in the artist's oeuvre. The young man's dejected posture and shadowy treatment have lead critics to believe that he may either be a victim of love or simply drunk. Art historian Rodney Nevitt Jr. believes that either the man has been overcome by the narcotic effects of smoking (a rolled paper of tobacco on the table), wine (from the ceramic pitcher), or as a rejected suitor who has lost the girl to the other man. His mood and pose are reminiscent of those of the girl in Vermeer's earlier A Maid Asleep.

Vermeer must have been very fond of this wine jug since it appears in strategically important areas of three other paintings, A Maid Asleep (above left), The Glass of Wine (above center) and The Music Lesson (above right). These all-white tin-glazed containers were originally produced in Faenza, Italy. In the 1550s they were exported to all over Europe and by the late 16th and early 17th century had become very fashionable. In Holland they were imitated by local potters. They appear in a great many genre interior paintings between 1650 and 1670. Although it is very difficult to distinguish between Italian and Dutch versions, historian of the Dutch decorative arts Alexandra Gaba-van Dongen believes that the ones in Vermeer's paintings are original Italian.

No attempt has ever been made to decipher the iconographic significance of this oversized candid-white cloth. Perhaps Vermeer included it for its pictorial value alone. According to Walter Liedtke, "the spatial relationship of the table to the figures in the foreground is unclear, and only slightly improved by the white cloth thrown in to cover up the problem." In any case, it effectively ties together the girl, the suitor and the seated man in the background and sets off the work's brilliant color scheme.

Perhaps its most distinctive feature is the bluish tone of the shadows (given by the pigment natural ultramarine blue), rare in Dutch painting of the time. In this painting, Vermeer employed the same ultramarine blue in the gray mixtures of the background wall, the shadow of the wine jug, the blue tablecloth and even more surprisingly in the darker shadow of the girl's satin red gown. The extended use of natural ultramarine blue might be considered the only anomaly in Vermeer's painting technique. Other painters habitually employed azurite that was far cheaper but less intense than the imported ultramarine.

The woman's openly expressive face is somewhat atypical for Vermeer who tends to convey his sitters' hidden emotions through their discreet gestures and nature of their activity. One early Vermeer expert has suspected that her staring eyes and awkward smile was the result of overpainting. In any case, rather than exchanging glances with her suitor, Vermeer's girl turns towards the viewer, separating herself from him. Arthur Wheelock has pointed out that the woman's smiling is a knowing one, indicating not only that she is aware of the situation, but also that she is in control. Thus, it is he rather than she that is being seduced. This scenario, where the male fawns over a beautiful woman with ruby lips and ivory skin dressed in fine satins only to be betrayed or rejected, is one that was fashionable among 17th-century poets, who based their ideas of unrequited love on the sonnets of Petrarch.

Other critics, quite oppositely, have viewed the girl as a romantic victim. Walter Liedtke writes "...what she controls is not her suitor ... but her unsteady nerves. ... ...one would guess that this silly goose is much less capable of keeping ganders at bay than is the stiff young woman in A Glass of Wine."

A writer once wrote that even though Vermeer never painted a single still-life, those which are a part of his interior compositions are among the most beautiful still-lives ever painted.

While critics have furnished any number of interpretations as to the meaning of the various props set on the deep blue tablecloth, all agree that they have been painted with extraordinary vigor. Sometimes the fruit has been described as a lemon and sometimes as an orange. Both were commonly found in Dutch still-lives but each reserve different iconographical meaning.

In a great many scenes of ritual courtship lemons are commonly seen along side oysters served up on a silver platter. In Vermeer's painting no oysters can be seen, which however, does not rule out that they had been already consumed. The symbolic content of the wine jug and wine glass would seem to reinforce the underlying theme of an attempted, albeit, highly ritualized seduction. But lemons were also used to sweeten and temper wine, in this respect they serve symbolically to indicate the importance of moderating one's behavior, a meaning which would be in contrast to the first. In any case, the famous pointillés, or spherical highlights which specialist believe proof that Vermeer used a camera obscura as an aid to his paintings, can be observed on the silver tray.

Vermeer's painting belongs to a genre of domestic scenes prevalent in mid 17th-century Holland in which the mores of contemporary life, particularly those pertaining to love and courtship, were depicted and commented upon. Many of these themes focus on the foibles of male/female relationships and man's inability to restrain his sexual appetite even though the narrative of Vermeer's paintings are so subtly contrived as to pose serious questions of interpretation. The young suitor, draped in an elegant cape, carefully accompanies the woman's hand which delicately holds the tip of a half-full wineglass.

His intentions have been interpreted in a number of ways by Vermeer specialists, from comic monsieur, seducer or seduced. Perhaps the story being told was far more evident to the artist's contemporaries than it appears today. But in ultimate analysis, his (and her) posture and expression are so highly formalized that they fail to furnish an unequivocal key to unlock the precise narrative meaning of the painting.

Although Vermeer's painting is primarily known for its lemon yellow/deep blue color harmony, the young artist experimented with strong reds at the outset of his career. The fiery red of this dress may denote the hidden passions of the young woman who seems to be accepting the advances of the gentleman. According to Dutch costume expert Marieke de Winkel, this young woman wears a tabbaard or tabbert reserved for formal occasions. It is a combination of a stiffened tightly-fitting bodice which is laced at the back and a long matching gown. In order to further reinforce the bodice, it was sometimes fitted with a stiff planck made of ivory, wood or even iron. Obviously, they must have been quite uncomfortable and were not recommended for pregnant women. Catharina Bolnes, Vermeer's wife, owned one such gown made of black clothe, most probably for mourning.

One of the most remarkable features of the painting is this stained-glass window which appears in another painting by Vermeer, The Glass of Wine, in Berlin. The coat of arms has been identified with Janetge Jacobsdr. Vogel, first wife of Moses van Nederveen but it is not known how Vermeer came by it. Although Janet Vogel and her husband had lived in Delft not too distant from Vermeer, Janet had died in 1624, eight years before the artist was born. The symbolic meaning of the coat of arms is now very clear and certainly required no coaxing to understand it in the time of Vermeer.

The female figure who holds a level and bridle personifies Temperantia, or Temperance, which is very similar to an image from Gabriel Rollenhagen's Selctorum Emblematum of 1613. Rollenhagen's illustration is accompanied with the text "The heart knows not how to observe moderation and applies reins to feelings when struck by desire" The level symbolizes good deeds and the bridle symbolizes emotional control. Thus, it is very probable that, together with the staid portrait on the rear wall, it provided some sort of admonitory comment to the protagonists' lack of self restraint.

Willemijn Fock, historian of the Dutch decorative arts, has demonstrated that it is highly improbable that the typical black and white marble floors which appear in so many Dutch interior paintings were painted directly from life. Such an exclusive luxury item could be found only in the homes of the rich and, thus, were beyond reach of Vermeer's financial possibilities.

Instead, the kind of small ceramic tiles in this painting were far more common even though the Dutch generally preferred the practical large-planked wooden floors. According to London architect and Vermeer specialist Philip Steadman, the minute details of the cracks and chips of the foreground tiles testify that they were indeed observed by Vermeer. Through reverse geometry, Steadman calculated that the ceramic tiles are exactly half the size of the larger black and white marble ones in the other pictures. This has lead him to believe that Vermeer used the underlying geometrical grid drawn from the real tiles to project the luxury marble ones which in effect he had never directly observed.

Willemijn Fock, historian of the Dutch decorative arts, has demonstrated that it is highly improbable that the typical black and white marble floors which appear in so many Dutch interior paintings were painted directly from life. Such an exclusive luxury item could be found only in the homes of the rich and, thus, were beyond reach of Vermeer's financial possibilities.

Instead, the kind of small ceramic tiles in this painting were far more common even though the Dutch generally preferred the practical large-planked wooden floors. According to London architect and Vermeer specialist Philip Steadman, the minute details of the cracks and chips of the foreground tiles testify that they were indeed observed by Vermeer. Through reverse geometry, Steadman calculated that the ceramic tiles are exactly half the size of the larger black and white marble ones in the other pictures. This has lead him to believe that Vermeer used the underlying geometrical grid drawn from the real tiles to project the luxury marble ones which in effect he had never

The blank white-washed walls are so typical in Dutch interior genre painting that it is easy to take them for granted.

From a technical point of view, their depiction represents one of the most challenging problems of pictorial illusionism. In some way, the tone and hue of the wall must be altered in order to describe the varying intensities of light that fall upon it. Painters generally resorted to a set formula whereby the brightest areas of the wall were painted with pure white or nearly-pure white. The infinite gradations of shadow were darkened with the addition of black pigment and raw umber, a warm brown which constituted one of the most important pigments on the artist's palette.

As a rule, Vermeer employed the same three pigments although in some of his works he added a very small amount of ultramarine blue to the gray mixtures to create a more vibrant hue. In this painting ultramarine blue has been indeed detected along with white and raw umber. The addition of blue lends the gray a decidedly greenish cast which subtly vibrates against the massive area of bright red paint of the girl's satin dress. It may be that Vermeer had assimilated this technique from Carel Fabritius who is known to have added ultramarine blue to the light gray background of his famous Goldfinch.