DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES - Jack Vettriano

The work depicts a distinguished woman, alone, sitting in the elegant room of a restaurant, with her head partly hidden by the wide brim of a hat. Between the fingers of her right hand she holds a cigarette, in front of her are several glasses of red wine. The light is dim. In the vase on the table there are white roses: Vettriano stated that he would have liked to paint them red, but these were not available from the florist at that time. The reclining head gives the female figure a sad, resigned expression: someone may have abandoned her in that place, or she may have arrived there alone after a bitter disappointment. Vettriano's work, like the film from which the title is inspired, is imbued with poignant lyricism; it invites reflection on human fragility, on the evolution of relationships, on the emptiness of absence.