A Girl Holding a Glass ("Taste", One of a Series of the Five Senses)

Painted in 1620, this work belongs to a series Ter Brugghen made representing the Five Senses, a popular allegorical theme in Baroque painting. Here, the sense of Taste is embodied by a young woman raising a glass of wine, her gaze directed outward as if inviting the viewer to share in the pleasure. Ter Brugghen was one of the leading Utrecht Caravaggisti, a group of Dutch painters who traveled to Rome and came back deeply transformed by Caravaggio's style. His approach carries all the hallmarks of that influence: bold contrasts of light and shadow, figures cropped close to the picture plane, and an almost confrontational intimacy with ordinary human experience.

What makes Ter Brugghen distinctive among his Utrecht peers is a certain softness and psychological warmth. His figures never feel like props for a moralizing lesson. This girl, with her glass raised, feels genuinely present, even a little playful. Peter Paul Rubens, no less, singled out Ter Brugghen as the finest painter in Utrecht. The Five Senses series shows why: he could take a conventional allegory and make it feel like a stolen moment from real life, grounded in observed detail rather than classical abstraction.