Lot 28: DENIS DIGHTON BRITISH, 1792-1827

SIGNED AND DATED (MAKER'S MARKS)
signed and dated 1823 l.r.

182 by 244 cm., 71 1/2 by 96 in.

oil on canvas

London, Royal Academy, 1823, no. 332
London, International Exhibition, 1862, no. 324

Algernon Graves, Royal Academy Exhibitions 1769-1904, 1905, vol. II, p. 331
George C. Williamson ed., Bryan's Dictionary of Painters and Engravers, revised and enlarged edition, 1930, vol. II, p. 75
G. Gemenakis, The First Painting of the Revolt, The Vima , 2 August 1987

PROPERTY OF A GENTLEMAN, LONDON

Denis Dighton, on whose death it passed to his widow, later Mrs. McIntyre
P. McIntyre
Sale: Phillip Son & Neal, London, March, 1960
Mrs. I. G. Theodorou; purchased from the above sale
Sale: Sotheby's, London, 14 March 1990, lot 109
purchased at the above sale by the present owner

In the early 1790's, the Turks were forced to respond to the growing Greek resistance to their long occupation. The most important conflict took place in the north west of the country in the Sanjak of Epirus. Here Ali Pasha, the Turkish Governor, attempted to put down the inhabitants of the Souli Mountains. In 1792, leading a large Turkish force, he tried to settle in this area and thus to establish Tukish dominion over its inhabitants. However, the Greeks rose up and resoundingly defeated the Turks in the defile of Klissura. The battle became one of the most important landmarks in the Greek's struggle for independence, which culminated in the Battle of Navarino in 1827, and the Protocol of London two years later.

The Battle of Klissura was executed a year before Delacroix painted his famous composition The Massacres of Chios (now in the collection of the Musee du Louvre, see fig. 1) and heralded a period when Philhellenism swept Europe. When Dighton exhibited the present work in 1823, at the height of the Greek revolt against the Turks, he accompanied the Royal Academy entry with the following description of the heroism of the Souliotes and most particularly of Mosca, the wife of Tzavella:

"Never had the Mahometans penetrated so far into the mountains. At the sight of their danger, the Souliotes raised a cry, which resounded even in the remotest recesses of the mountains: the cry announced the public danger. Suli was lost, had it not been for a Howrie, the celebrated Mosca, the wife of Tzavella (introduced on the breach), nobly emulating her husband in the defence of her country: she called the women to arms: and forcing the warriors, who were in full retreat, to turn about, she rallied, harrangued, and animated them to fresh exertions. All influenced by the same generous passion, the love of their country, the Souliotes, both men and women, seemed now to have but one soul, and as it were, but one body: seizing by collective strength immense blocks of stone and huge masses of rock, they rolled them down, with hideous crash, on the head of their invaders. The Turkish column was broken to its very center."

Denis Dighton, the finest military painter in England at the begining of the 19th Century, had direct experience in army life, being commissioned by the 90th Foot in 1811. His interest in and observation of troops, both in the Peninsular Wars and later in France, gave him the ability to paint the actual scenes of conflict with enormous verve. The large group of watercolour studies by him in the Royal Collection attest to this, and even more so his rare oil paintings: most notably the present work, The Battle of Waterloo (The Royal Collection and The National Trust, Plas Newyd, Anglesey) and The Fall of Nelson (National Maritime Museum, Greenwich). As a result of his emergence in this field, he was appointed Royal Military Painter by the Prince Regent in 1815. He was also a strong supporter of the Greeks in their struggle for independence and, like Byron in literature, so Dighton in painting raised awareness of the Greek's struggel in Britain. He exhibited the magnificent Battle of Klissura at the Royal Academy in 1823 and followed it two years later with The Defeat of the Turks at Patras (lost).