A Peasant holding a Glass

This peasant, by David Teniers (1610-1690), grips his glass of beer with both hands, eyeing the drink’s level. This type of glass, known as a pasglas or “pass glass” in seventeenth-century Holland, was often used in drinking games where drinkers had to consume their beverage down to a specific mark on the vessel’s exterior. By reckoning how far he will drink, this peasant humorously suggests he is employing discerning vision – much like Teniers does as a painter. This interest in humour is characteristic of Teniers’s work as a genre painter, or an artist who depicts scenes of everyday life and everyday people.

This work forms a pair with a second painting of a peasant in the collection (DPG110). They are both painted on copper. Over a quarter of works in Teniers’s extensive oeuvre were executed on this metal support that perfectly served the artist’s purpose of showing intricate light effects and his love of detail. His familiarity with the support can be traced back to some early works on copper made in collaboration with his father, with whom he trained. Copper was a popular material among numerous Dutch and Flemish painters. Its smooth surface often encouraged a finer manner of painting so Teniers’s sketch-like brushwork in A Peasant Holding a Glass is unusual, a style more reminiscent of paintings by Teniers’s contemporary, Adriaen Brouwer (c. 1605-1638).