Christ in the wine press

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Epitaph Conrad Lemmer and wife (1654), St. Stephen's Church (Calbe) Christ in the wine press with figures from the Old and New Testaments. Title copper of the Ernestine Bible (1649)
Christ in the wine press, fresco, Milan, S. Maria Immacolata
Oberwittelsbach Church. From the death of the martyrs. Christ in the wine press, 1526

Christ in the wine press (also Christ as a wine press or mystical wine press ) is a motif of Christian iconography that emerged in the 12th century . Christ is depicted at work in a wine press, with the wine that flows out and is collected in a chalice as the blood of Christ .

The representation takes place in an allegorical recording of biblical statements such as the prophet Isaiah:

I alone stepped the wine press; none of the peoples was there. Then I crushed her in anger, crushed her in my anger. Her blood spurted on my robes and stained my clothes. ( Jes 63,3  EU )

This Old Testament allusion was christologically linked with the eschatological reference to the Apocalypse:

He was dressed in a robe soaked in blood; and his name is called "The Word of God". […] And he rules over them with an iron scepter, and he treads the press of wine, the avenging wrath of God, the ruler over all creation. ( Rev 19 : 13-15  EU )

The blessing of Jacob over Judah plays a further element:

He ties his horse to the vine and his donkey to the vine. He washes his clothes in wine, his clothes in grape blood. ( Gen 49.11  EU )

Likewise, the cluster of cyper flowers from Engedi of the Song of Solomon played a role ( Hld 1.14  EU ), the legendary grape of the ambassadors of the promised land ( Num 13.23-24  EU ) and finally the Psaltery (Psalm 8, 80 and 83 ).

According to the classical allegorical interpretation of the Bible , the Fathers of the Church saw the blood of Christ in the pressed wine or Christ himself in the pressed grape. As a result, the idea of ​​Christ developed both as the presser and the one who was trodden.

The oldest pictorial representation of this topic is a mural from the early 12th century in the monastery church of Kleincomburg near Schwäbisch Hall .

literature

  • Alois Thomas: Wine press, mystical . In: Engelbert Kirschbaum (Ed.): Lexicon of Christian Iconography . General Iconography, Volume 2, Herder, Freiburg 1970, Sp. 497–504.

Web links

Commons : Christ in the wine press  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Alois Thomas: Christ in the wine press . In: Real Lexicon on German Art History . Volume 3. Munich 1953, Sp. 677 ( digitized version ); ( Picture ).