diff --git a/glib/Variant.cs b/glib/Variant.cs
index bde56b665..2bb35be91 100644
--- a/glib/Variant.cs
+++ b/glib/Variant.cs
@@ -60,6 +60,18 @@ namespace GLib {
 			this.handle = g_variant_ref_sink (handle);
 		}
 
+		[DllImport (Global.GLibNativeDll, CallingConvention = CallingConvention.Cdecl)]
+		static extern IntPtr g_variant_get_type (IntPtr val);
+
+		VariantType type;
+		public VariantType Type {
+			get {
+				if (type == null)
+					type = new VariantType (g_variant_get_type (Handle));
+				return type;
+			}
+		}
+
 		[DllImport (Global.GLibNativeDll, CallingConvention = CallingConvention.Cdecl)]
 		static extern IntPtr g_variant_new_variant (IntPtr val);
 
diff --git a/sample/VariantDemo.cs b/sample/VariantDemo.cs
index f13b74b71..5d2f1481e 100644
--- a/sample/VariantDemo.cs
+++ b/sample/VariantDemo.cs
@@ -33,6 +33,8 @@ namespace sample
 			var asv = variant.ToAsv ();
 			Console.WriteLine ("strv: " + asv["strv"].Print(true));
 			Console.WriteLine ("unit: " + asv["unit"].Print(true));
+
+			Console.WriteLine ("type: " + variant.Type.ToString ());
 		}
 
 		public static void Main (string[] args)
@@ -40,4 +42,4 @@ namespace sample
 			new VariantDemo ();
 		}
 	}
-}
\ No newline at end of file
+}