3-053-813 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Vintage in France: grape gatherers returning, 1873. 'There is always a pleasant fragrance of sentimental and sensuous delight hanging over the pictorial idea of a vineyard in the south of Europe, or on the green hills of the Rhine or Danube...there are many poetical and artistic traditions which have ever associated the classic culture of the vine with visions of a free and happy social life, combining rural simplicity of manners with refinement and grace, and with joyful effusions of gratitude for the bounty of Nature in due season. The vine, too, along with the olive, has been cherished as a symbol of peace as well as of plenty, but more especially as a token and instrument of harmless household mirth. If the view which we present this week of "Les Vendanges," in the sunny plains of Burgundy, or on the shores of the Gironde and the banks of the Garonne, should prove at all suggestive of these genial affections, which are perhaps more valuable to humanity than the actual use of fermented grape-juice as a cordial beverage, we do not think the most resolute teetotaller will have any fault to find with its effect...and good sound wine, in moderate cups, has a right to make glad the heart of a sober man'. From "Illustrated London News", 1873.