Lot 34: Nicholas Vokos Greek, 1861-1902 , young girl with flowers

oil on canvas

168 by 84cm., 66 by 33in.

Chrisanthos Christou, Greek Painting 1832-1922
, Athens, 1981, no. 102, p. 154, illustrated

The grandson of Admiral Miaoulis, a hero of the Greek War of Independence, Vokos was first destined for a military career but quickly changed his mind enrolling at the School of Fine Arts in Athens and later the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. He remained in Munich for sixteen years eventually founding a school for painting. According to Marinos Kalligas ?Vokos was considered a good teacher but, oddly, not a productive painter. This may be due to the misunderstanding of his contemporaries; but more probably the struggle for existence compelling him to paint in a hurry, and to sell his work at once, so that he never had any body of work in his studio to show? (Marinos Kalligas, Greek Painters of the National Gallery , Athens, 1957, p. 25). Few figurative works by Vokos are known and large scale canvases such as Young Girl with Flowers are extremely rare. Another work by Vokos, Girl with a Tambourine , also formerly in the Loulis-Kraniotis Collection is now in the collection of Yianni Perdios, Athens (fig. 1). Fig. 1: Nicholas Vokos, Girl with a Tambourine , Yiannis Perdios Collection, Athens