Roc-Noir Vintage Table Wine Poster by John Ernest Chilton, 1920

John Ernest Chilton’s Roc-Noir, Vin de Table–Tafelwijn, created in 1920, turns a wine advertisement into a piece of exuberant visual theatre. Against an almost solid black ground, a lively red-haired woman in a brilliant yellow dress appears beside an outsized green bottle of Roc-Noir. The poster’s restricted palette—acid yellow, bottle green, orange-gold and black—makes every element immediately legible, while the contrast between the figure’s sweeping costume and the bottle’s upright silhouette gives the composition its graphic force.

Made at a time when commercial artists were increasingly relying on bold colour, simplified forms and memorable typography, Chilton’s design is intended to register at a glance. Its bilingual wording, “Vin de Table–Tafelwijn”, addresses French- and Dutch-speaking consumers, while the line “Jacques Neefs–Antwerpen” locates the advertisement within the Belgian market. Rather than presenting wine through a vineyard, dining room or elaborate still life, the poster creates a personified spectacle around the product: grapes migrate from ingredient to costume, transforming the model herself into part of the brand’s visual identity.

A closer look

The woman occupies the most animated part of the design. Her reddish hair, pale grey hat and raised arm lead the eye towards the bunch of grapes she holds aloft. Her yellow dress spreads across the lower half of the composition in broad, curving shapes, patterned with clusters of grapes that vary in size. Small wine-glass motifs appear towards the hem, a witty detail that only becomes apparent after the initial impact of the colour. The rounded movement of the fabric gives the figure a buoyant, almost performative presence.

Behind her rises the monumental green bottle, its scale deliberately exaggerated. Subtle highlights and darker passages suggest reflective glass without weakening the poster’s predominantly flat construction. The label bears the name “ROC-NOIR” and includes finer architectural detailing, providing a concentrated area of intricacy within an otherwise simplified design. The bottle’s firm vertical geometry also acts as a foil to the softer curves of the dress; one is static and substantial, the other full of motion.

At the lower edge, “ROC-NOIR” appears again in large yellow capitals, set directly against black for maximum contrast. The smaller bilingual product description beneath establishes a clear hierarchy: brand first, commodity and distributor second. This integration of lettering and illustration is central to the design’s effectiveness. The words do not merely caption the scene but anchor it, turning the lower portion of the poster into a strong typographic base for the figure and bottle above.

Context and significance

Early twentieth-century advertising posters had to communicate quickly in streets, shops and other visually crowded settings. Chilton’s solution is economical but far from austere. He reduces the scene to a few large, cleanly outlined forms, then enriches it through repetition: grapes appear in the woman’s hand, on her hat and across her clothing, while the wine glasses at the hem extend the theme to consumption. The result balances commercial clarity with playful decorative invention.

The French and Dutch text is more than a practical label. It reflects the multilingual audience for whom the advertisement was conceived and gives the design a distinctly Belgian commercial context, reinforced by the reference to Antwerp. Nearly every part of the composition serves the same message, yet its theatrical figure, unusual scale and sharply controlled colour allow Roc-Noir to retain an independent visual character beyond its original advertising purpose.

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The model in the listing images is holding the 24x36in (60x90cm) version of this art print.

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