Champagne in Classical Painting:
From Court Dinners to 19th-Century Cafes

In 1735, Jean-François de Troyes painted "Oyster Luncheon" for the Palace of Versailles. The scene is built around a long table covered with a white tablecloth. Open shells, plates, decanters, and bottles are laid out on it. Several guests suddenly look up as a cork flies across the table. This brief episode imbued the court dinner with an almost theatrical movement.

The popped cork appears to be a random detail, though the artist clearly made it the focal point of the overall movement. One man moves away from the table, another turns around, a third raises his hand. A servant at the edge of the composition holds the bottle at an angle. Foam has already appeared at the neck, leaving a light trace on the fabric.

Champagne wasn’t served like a regular table wine in such scenes. It required a sturdy bottle, a secure cork, and a cool place. In the 18th century, glass often failed to withstand the internal pressure, leading to cellars losing entire batches. Thick-walled, dark bottles gradually became more common, and the cork was additionally secured with twine or a wire device.

By that time, Ruinart champagne was already well-known at the French court and in wealthy city homes. In de Troyes’s painting, the name of the wine is obscured, but the ritual itself is clearly visible: the bottle is opened in front of guests, and the sudden pop changes the mood of the room. The artist is interested not in the type of drink, but in the moment of general excitement.

Buckets of ice stand under the table. They were placed near the guests to prevent the bottles from warming up in the heated room. Ice was an expensive commodity: it was harvested in winter, stored in special iceboxes, and brought to city homes for large receptions. Even this simple detail in the painting speaks more about the preparation of the dinner than the expensive tableware.

The traffic jam at de Troyes is a rare example of an everyday incident that 18th-century painting preserved almost in real time.

The white tablecloth enhances the effect. Shadows from bottles, silverware, and hands are visible on it, and the dark glass seems especially heavy. De Troyes doesn’t attempt to break down the dinner into individual objects, as in a still life. He depicts a bustling table where the dishes have already been sampled, conversations have raged on, and servants barely have time to change plates.

Glass, bottle and dining habit

The glassware in old paintings often helps to more accurately date a scene. In early depictions, sparkling wine is poured into small glasses with a solid base. Their shape was practical: the glass was hand-made, the sides were not always smooth, and the thin stems easily broke during drinking.

Later, wide bowls — cream bowls — became increasingly common in interiors. They resemble small glass dishes on a stem. In such a bowl, the drink quickly loses some of its gas, but the surface catches the candlelight beautifully. For an artist, this is a convenient object: a single stroke of yellow paint conveys the wine, and a white highlight transforms the vessel into glass.

Nicolas Lancret and his contemporaries often hold glasses by the stem or base. This gesture is easily visible even in small figures. The hand remains light, slender, slightly raised above the dark background of the garden or room. The glass almost disappears, and the viewer notices it by the glint on the rim.

The shape of a glass also depended on the tastes of the era. In the 18th century, crystal was often faceted, decorated with carvings, gold rims, and coats of arms. The rich ornamentation obscured the wine’s color but fragmented the light across its many facets. In candlelight, such glasses shimmered more noticeably than smooth glass.

Still lifes offer a different perspective. There, a bottle lies on its side next to fruit, a knife, bread, or a vase. The artist can spend a long time working with just the neck, the green glass, and the window reflection. On a festive table, these details come together quickly: the bottle is picked up, the wine is poured, it’s passed to a neighbor, and then placed back on ice.

How artists painted glass and foam

A clear glass is difficult to depict on canvas. It has almost no color of its own. The artist must convey the glass’s rim, the refraction of light, the shadow cast by the stem, and the liquid inside. A single glare can make the object appear metal, porcelain, or an empty vase.

The work began with the background. If a dark wall was visible behind the glass, the glass edge was marked with a cool, light brushstroke. A thin gray or bluish line appeared against the window. The wine was painted in transparent layers, leaving a denser yellow hue at the bottom and along the rim of the bowl.

Foam required a different approach. It’s short-lived, so its depiction is rarely detailed. In many paintings, only a light stripe at the neck or a few white dots above the drink is visible. This is sufficient: the eye completes the movement, even though the bubbles in the painting cannot rise.

Édouard Manet loved objects that reflect light with unexpected sharpness. In "Bar at the Folies Bergère," bottles, glasses, and a vase of flowers stand on the counter. The dark glass here doesn’t blend in with the interior. It’s separated by yellow stripes on the bottle necks, white highlights, and the light marble surface of the bar.

The room behind the barmaid is reflected in the mirror. The audience, chandeliers, hats, and faces are visible. The foreground remains denser and calmer: bottles are lined up at the edge of the bar, like the bar’s work equipment. They occupy their place in the frame and require no further explanation.

Paint sometimes replaces the precision of drawing. In Manet, a single broad, light brushstroke can suggest wet glass, metal foil, or the reflection of a lamp. Up close, these brushstrokes appear simple. From a distance, they coalesce into the familiar surface of a bottle.

Terraces, cafes and river walks

In the second half of the 19th century, champagne appeared noticeably more frequently outside palace halls. It was consumed on verandas, in waterfront restaurants, in cafes, and at summer receptions. Artists chose such locations for the light, the people, and the rapid movement. The table no longer stood motionless in the middle of the room: shadows from the awning, leaves, hats, and passing guests fell upon it.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir worked at the Fournaise restaurant in Chatou, near Paris. In "Luncheon of the Boating Party," people in summer clothes sit nearby, a dog leans on the railing, and fruit and bottles remain on the table. The air of the river can be felt behind the guests, although water takes up little space in the composition.

The scene doesn’t resemble a formal reception. The rowers have arrived from a cruise, their clothes looser than the courtiers’ attire in de Troyes’s canvases. The bottles are set among ordinary food, without silver trays or elaborate table settings. Yet the artist doesn’t make the table appear sparse or casual: the white linen, glass, and wicker hats are gathered into clear splashes of color.

Lunch drags on for a long time.

Renoir paints glasses more softly than Manet. Their rims dissolve in the sunny air, and the drink is sometimes discernible only by its warm glow. In this painting, the glass is not separated from the light by a rigid outline. It captures the nuances of the tablecloth, the face of the person sitting next to him, and the green of the awning.

In city cafes, a bottle could become part of the work environment. It was placed on the bar counter next to flowers, fruit, plates, and cash register items. The waiter would open the next bottle, the customer would wait for their order, and musicians would play in the hall. For the artist, this arrangement was convenient because each surface reflected light in its own unique way.

The gold foil around the neck looked especially beautiful under gaslight. It created a brief, bright flash among the dark bottles. In late 19th-century paintings, such flashes replace detailed labels: the viewer is satisfied with the bottle’s color, shape, and position on the table.

Light on glass

Classical painting preserved champagne in various settings: at a palace dinner, in a drawing room, on a summer terrace, at a bar. Costumes, furniture, the shape of the glass, and the guests’ habits changed. The bottle remained a complex subject for the artist — dark, shiny, reflective, and almost always surrounded by the movement of hands.

Sometimes the artist shows only the neck of the bottle at the edge of the frame. Sometimes, a full bottle in an ice bucket. In one case, it’s needed to accurately describe the table setting; in another, it becomes a spot of light next to a white tablecloth. These differences are noticeable upon close inspection: glass, cork, and foam tell the story of time as well as furniture or clothing.