Artwork
The Wine Press
The Wine Press is an oil painting by the Pre-Raphaelite artist John Roddam Spencer Stanhope. It dates from 1864 and is held in the collection of the National Gallery.
About this work
Overview
John Roddam Spencer Stanhope, an English painter associated with the later Pre‑Romantic circle that included Edward Burne‑Jones and George Frederic Watts, completed the oil work The Wine Press in 1864. The canvas presents a solitary, crowned figure engaged with a wine‑press apparatus, rendered in a muted, dramatic palette.
Subject & Meaning
The central figure, robed and crowned, stands within the press, holding a wooden bar aloft with his right hand while his left arm hangs limp. Bare feet are submerged in a dark, viscous liquid that pools around him, suggesting a ritualistic or allegorical reading of labor, sacrifice, or the transformation of fruit into wine.
Technique & Style
Stanhope employs strong chiaroscuro, allowing light to carve the figure from a tenebrous background of wooden beams. The intricate patterns on the robe and crown are rendered with fine brushwork, while the overall handling of oil hints at a tempera‑like precision, reflecting the artist’s experimental approach to medium.
Context
Created during the height of Aestheticism and the rise of British Symbolism, the painting aligns with Stanhope’s broader interest in mythological and biblical subjects. Its somber tone and allegorical content echo contemporary concerns with moral and spiritual symbolism in Victorian art.
History & Provenance
The work remains documented as part of Stanhope’s oeuvre from the mid‑1860s, though specific ownership history after its exhibition is not extensively recorded in public archives.
Artist & collection
Artist
John Roddam Spencer Stanhope (20 January 1829 – 2 August 1908) was an English artist associated with Edward Burne-Jones and George Frederic Watts and often regarded as a second-wave pre-Raphaelite.
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