Tea for Everyone

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Artist Unknown Inglese Couple Having Tea c 1830-40

Bernard de Hoog (Dutch painter, 1867-1943) Tea Time

Thomas Webster (Inglese genre painter, 1800-1886), The Tea Party 1862

Tom McEwan (British genre artist, 1846-1914) Tea Time

Andrei Ryabushkin (Russian painter, 1861-1904) Drinking Tea 1903

Harold John Wilde Gilman (Inglese painter, 1876-1919) Mrs Mounter at the Breakfast Table

Harold Harvey (Inglese Painter, 1874-1941]) The Tea Table 1920

Poul Friis Nybo (Danish artist, from 1869 to 1929) Reading Woman 1929

William Patrick Roberts (British painter, 1895-1980) Tea Shop 1938

Proust on Taking Tea in the Winter

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Edward George Handel Lucas (English artist, 1861-1936) Silent Advocates of Temperance 1891

From Remembrances of Things Past (À la recherche du temps perdu 1913-22), here is Proust's young memory of taking tea...

"When one day in winter, on my return home, my mother, seeing that I was cold, offered me some tea, a thing I did not ordinarily take. I declined at first, and then, for no particular reason, changed my mind. She sent for one of those squat, plump little cakes called petites madeleines, which look as though they had been molded in the fluted valve of a scallop shell.

"And soon, mechanically, dispirited after a dreary day with the prospect of a depressing morrow, I raised to my lips a spoonful of the tea in which I had soaked a morsel of the cake. No sooner had the warm liquid mixed with the crumbs touched my palate than a shiver ran through me and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary thing that was happening to me. An exquisite pleasure had invaded my senses, something isolated, detached, with no suggestion of its origin.

"And at once the vicissitudes of life had become indifferent to me, its disasters innocuous, its brevity illusory - this new sensation having had the effect, which love has, of filling me with a precious essence; or rather this essence was not in me, it-was-me.

"I had ceased now to feel mediocre, contingent, mortal. When could it have come to me, this all-powerful joy? I sensed that it was connected with the taste of the tea and the cake, but that it infinitely transcended those savors..."

Marcel Proust 1871-1922.

1700s Bringing the Harvest to the Table with Peter Jakob Horemans (Flemish-Dutch painter, 1700-1776)

Peter Jakob Horemans (Flemish-Dutch painter, 1700-1776) Lady at a Table Laden with Food

One of my favorite 18th-century Flemish painters is Peter Jakob Horemans (1700-1776), who was active as court painter in Munich. Horemans’s lovingly detailed images, part portrait & part still life, capture the richness of everyday life in southern Germany.

Peter Jakob Horemans (Flemish-Dutch painter, 1700-1776) Gentleman at a Table Laden with Food

Peter Jakob Horemans (Flemish-Dutch painter, 1700-1776) The Soup Eater

Peter Jakob Horemans (Flemish-Dutch painter, 1700-1776) Gentleman with Wine

Peter Jakob Horemans (Flemish-Dutch painter, 1700-1776) Kitchen Still Life "The Feeling" 1760

Peter Jakob Horemans (Flemish-Dutch painter, 1700-1776) The Sleeping Kitchen Maid

1600s Music indoors + a few folks with dogs by Dutch artist Gerard Terborch 1617-1681

Gerard Terborch (Dutch Baroque Era Painter, 1617-1681) The Concert

Gerard Terborch (Dutch Baroque Era Painter, 1617-1681) The Dancing Couple

Gerard Terborch (Dutch Baroque Era Painter, 1617-1681) The Duet - Singer and Theorbo Player with attending dog...

Gerard Terborch (Dutch Baroque Era Painter, 1617-1681) The Suitor's Visit with attending dog...


Gerard Terborch (Dutch Baroque Era painter, 1617-1681) A Concert 1675


Gerard Terborch (Dutch Baroque Era painter, 1617-1681) Lute 1658


Gerard Terborch (Dutch Baroque Era painter, 1617-1681) Music Lesson 1668-9


Gerard Terborch (Dutch Baroque Era painter, 1617-1681) Woman with Music Manuscript


Gerard Terborch (Dutch Baroque Era painter, 1617-1681) The Concert 1655


Gerard Terborch (Dutch Baroque Era painter, 1617-1681) The Music Lesson with attending dog... 1668


Gerard Terborch (Dutch Baroque Era painter, 1617-1681) Woman at the Virginal with attending dog...


Gerard Terborch (Dutch Baroque Era painter, 1617-1681) Woman Making Music


Gerard Terborch (Dutch Baroque Era painter, 1617-1681) Woman Playing a Theorbo for Two Men with attending dog...


Gerard Terborch (Dutch Baroque Era painter, 1617-1681) Woman Playing the Theorbo Lute and a Cavalier c 1658

Gerard Terborch (Dutch Baroque Era Painter, 1617-1681) Glass of Lemonade

Gerard Terborch (Dutch Baroque Era Painter, 1617-1681) Lady at her Toilette with attending dog...

Gerard Terborch (Dutch Baroque Era Painter, 1617-1681) Man Offering a Woman Coins

Gerard Terborch (Dutch Baroque Era Painter, 1617-1681) Margaretha van Haexbergen, Wife of Jan van Duren

Gerard Terborch (Dutch Baroque Era Painter, 1617-1681) Mother Combing the Hair of Her Child

Gerard Terborch (Dutch Baroque Era Painter, 1617-1681) Paternal Admonition with attending dog...

Gerard Terborch (Dutch Baroque Era Painter, 1617-1681) Reading Lesson

Gerard Terborch (Dutch Baroque Era Painter, 1617-1681) The Visit

Gerard Terborch (Dutch Baroque Era Painter, 1617-1681) Woman at a Mirror

Gerard Terborch (Dutch Baroque Era Painter, 1617-1681) Woman Drinking Wine

Gerard Terborch (Dutch Baroque Era Painter, 1617-1681) Woman Washing Hands with attending dog...

Gerard Terborch (Dutch Baroque Era Painter, 1617-1681) Young Woman at Her Toilet with a Maid

Gerard Terborch (Ter Borch) (1617-1681) was a portrait painter, who also specialized in genre paintings which represented bourgeois figures engaged in various domestic tasks or elegantly dressed figures set within luxurious interiors. (Speaking of elegant, his self portrait is priceless!) Terborch's work inspired such artists as Pieter de Hooch, Gabriël Metsu, & Caspar Netscher (1639-1684), his leading pupil.

Gerard Terborch (Dutch Baroque Era Painter, 1617-1681) Self Portrait 1666

Because Terborch included details of rooms and landscapes in his paintings, most of these works are details.

1600s Music Indoors + Eating, Courting, Drinking & Dogs by Dutch artist Gabriel Metsu 1629-1667

Gabriel Metsu (Dutch Baroque Era Painter, 1629-1667) Young Woman Composing Music with attending dog...

Gabriel Metsu (Dutch Baroque Era Painter, 1629-1667) The Cittern Player with attending dog...

Gabriel Metsu (Dutch Baroque Era Painter, 1629-1667) A Musical Party


Gabriel Metsu (Dutch Baroque Era Painter, 1629-1667) Virginal


Gabriel Metsu (Dutch Baroque Era Painter, 1629-1667) A Woman Seated at a Table with Cello & Man Tuning a Violin (with dog) c 1665 with attending dog...


Gabriel Metsu (Dutch Baroque Era painter, 1629-1667) Music Lesson

Gabriel Metsu (Dutch Baroque Era Painter, 1629-1667) Breakfast 1660 with attending dog...

Gabriel Metsu (Dutch Baroque Era Painter, 1629-1667) Lady Seated in a Window

Gabriel Metsu (Dutch Baroque Era Painter, 1629-1667) Portrait of the Artist with His Wife Isabella de Wolff in a Tavern

Gabriel Metsu (Dutch Baroque Era Painter, 1629-1667) Soldier Paying a Visit to a Young Lady with attending dog...

Gabriel Metsu (Dutch Baroque Era Painter, 1629-1667) Tavern Scene

Gabriel Metsu (Dutch Baroque Era Painter, 1629-1667) The Feast of the Bean King (a Twelfth Night tradition)

Gabriel Metsu (Dutch Baroque Era Painter, 1629-1667) The Hunter and a Woman with attending dog...

Gabriel Metsu (Dutch Baroque Era Painter, 1629-1667) The Hunter's Gift with attending dog...

Gabriel Metsu (Dutch Baroque Era Painter, 1629-1667) The Prodigal Son

Gabriel Metsu (Dutch Baroque Era Painter, 1629-1667) The Sick Child

Gabriel Metsu (Dutch Baroque Era Painter, 1629-1667) The Sick Girl

Gabriel Metsu (Dutch Baroque Era Painter, 1629-1667) The Sleeping Sportsman with attending dog...

Gabriel Metsu (Dutch Baroque Era Painter, 1629-1667) The Tippler (The Wine Drinker)

Gabriel Metsu (Dutch Baroque Era Painter, 1629-1667) The Visit to the Nursery with attending dog...

Gabriel Metsu (Dutch Baroque Era Painter, 1629-1667) Visit of the Physician with attending dog...

Gabriël Metsu (1629-1667) was trained as a painter in his native Leiden but spent the last part of his career in Amsterdam. Most of his output consists of genre paintings which reproduce in a direct & simple way the life of the Dutch middle classes in the 17C.

Gabriel Metsu (Dutch Baroque Era Painter, 1629-1667) Self Portrait

Note: Because Metsu included details of rooms and landscapes in his paintings, most of these works are details.