Wine in history: Self-portraits with wine

Wine in history: Self-portraits with wine

Stuart Walton traces the evolving meanings of self-portraits with wine, from the Late Renaissance to the beginning of the 20th century. No cat that got the cream could ever have looked so gluttonously self-satisfied. The man in the wine-red tunic looks back at us over his shoulder with an uninhibited guffaw, a slight flush on his cheeks, his dewy skin vivid in the candlelight, an outsized goblet clutched rather delicately in his left hand. Its c…