Soldado oferecendo uma taça de vinho a uma mulher

In 1648 the Dutch Republic signed the peace that ended 80 years of war with Spain, and the army it had kept in the field was cut back hard. Idle soldiers began turning up all over Dutch painting, in guardrooms, in taverns, and in rooms like this one, where an officer leans in with a glass of wine while a servant watches from behind. De Hooch was barely past 20 when he painted it, years before the sunlit Delft courtyards that made his name. He was employed at the time by a linen merchant who took him on as painter and servant at once, and he was working for a modest market that wanted exactly this kind of scene. The light already falls from a single window on the left, the arrangement he would spend the next 30 years refining.