A standing young woman being addressed by a a seated man in the presence of a seated, drinking, woman. Engraving by J.G. Wille, 1765, after G. Terborch.

Interpretation of the subject as "paternal instruction" is apparently due to Wille, as engraved in the lettering to this print. It was popularised by Goethe, in whose novel Die Wahlverwandschaften (1809) the characters enact a tableau vivant of this composition. However the seated man seems to be too young to be a plausible paterfamilias. In the original painting he may have been holding a coin, though this part of the painting is indistinct (both in the version in Berlin and in another version in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam). The coin might mean that the man is a customer in a brothel or that he is indicating a dowry. Possibly Wille though that "paternal instruction" was a more suitable interpretation for a print dedicated to the empress (Kelch, op. cit., and Hoff, op. cit.)