Copying scenes from engravings, German glass painters in the 1500s and 1600s painted a wide variety of biblical, allegorical, genre, armorial, erotic, and historical subjects on their vessels. Other themes were so common that they became part of the names of the vessels themselves. For example, this beaker with its scene of four huntsmen chasing stags, hares, a boar, a fox, and a deer, is known as a Jagdhumpen (hunt beaker) because of its subject. Hunting was a popular pastime for the nobility during this period.

One French visitor to Germany in 1688 commented on the Germans' love of drinking vessels:

You must further know, that the Glasses are as much respected in [Germany] as the Wine is beloved. They place them all en Parade...and the glasses are ranged upon the Cornish [cornice] of the Wainscot, like Pipes of Organs. They begin with the little, and end with the great Ones; and these great Ones are always used, and must be emptied at a Draught, when there is any Health of Importance....