In 1878 during excavations on the Moselle a large stone sculpture was discovered representing a Roman wine ship. A model of it serves Jan Kiefer (Trier, Germany, 1979) who lives and works in Basel, as point of departure for a new series of paintings.

The first painting of the work group shows the bow of the wine ship, the last shows the stern. Jan Kiefer creates a succession of sequences that reference the image-logic of the wimmel- or story-book and turns the ship into a stage, on which gesticulating Romans are talking about the sense and purpose of human culture. As a cultural asset wine is a complex symbol in religion and art and a recurring motif in the work of the artist. With sly humour and astuteness Jan Kiefer does not only question the cultural significance of art in our society. With the figure of Obelix, made of antique glass, he brings the Romans face to face with a symbol of resistance and reflects on how even formative epochs are short-lived but still have an impact on our current world-view.