Glass of Lemonade

Ter Borch's Glass of Lemonade from around 1663-64, in the Hermitage, depicts a gallant offering a drink to a young woman in an elegant interior, a courtship scene rendered with the artist's characteristic psychological subtlety. The lemonade glass, a luxury item in seventeenth-century Holland, signals the refinement of the social interaction. Ter Borch's mastery of suggestion—conveying complex emotional dynamics through minimal gestures and expressions—made him the most psychologically sophisticated of the Dutch genre painters.

Ter Borch's rendering of the satin dress, with its characteristic silvery luminosity, is among his finest. The restrained composition focuses attention on the subtle interaction between the two figures, with the glass of lemonade serving as the charged focal point of their exchange.