Messrs Snow & Co, Wine Merchants, Exeter

This scene in a wine store was drawn by Beryl Newman (née Trist) in 1957. Newman trained in Hertfordshire and London and her work was exhibited in the Royal Academy in 1939 and 1941. Before the war years Newman travelled widely with her engineer father making paintings and sketches. 

She moved to Lustleigh in Devon in 1931 and continued her art both before and after her marriage in 1946. 

She painted portraits and landscapes and animal studies, but here we see the interior of Snow’s wine store in Exeter. Newman has made the sketch in pencil, apparently from direct observation. 

Visual description: A detailed landscape pencil sketch of a wine cellar. Wooden posts and beams support a curved ceiling. Heavy shading provides a dark atmosphere, with a single hanging light illuminating brick walls and a cobbled floor. There is a clear path lined with crates that are stacked against the walls. Some crates have open sides and are filled with wine bottles, while others have closed sides and lids and what is inside is not visible. One of the boxes displays the text ‘SNOW, Wine Merch, Exeter’. Identical text appears on a solitary wine barrel resting on its side above a stool with a bucket positioned beneath its tap.