Glass of Lemonade

By the 1660s the Dutch Republic was rich, and its merchant families wanted paintings of their own quiet rooms rather than saints or battles. Gerard ter Borch gave them exactly that, but with a private charge underneath. A young man leans close to a young woman while an older woman stirs a glass of lemonade between them. To modern eyes it reads as simple courtship. Dutch viewers of the time knew the type, a visit arranged by a go-between, the girl's innocence perhaps only played. Ter Borch was among the first here to paint the unspoken pull between people rather than just the costumes. Look at the satin. He rendered it so finely that other painters copied his shimmering white skirts for a generation.