Nicholas Gysis Greek, 1842-1901

Sale: New York, 15-16 April 1909 as Le bon grand-papa 
Private Collection, Florida; thence by descent to the present owner

Having remained in a family collection in the United States for nearly a century, Grandfather and Grandson is a previously unrecorded work and exciting re-discovery. By the 1880s Gysis had found international renown as a genre painter and sold his works not only to Greek and German collectors but also to buyers in Great Britain, France, Italy and the United States. It is probable that Grandfather and Grandson was sold to a collector in the United States shortly after its conception.

Considered by many to be the father of Greek 19^th-Century painting, Nicholas Gysis was at the pinnacle of his career when he painted Grandfather and Grandson in the early 1880s. Depicting a grandfather mending his socks while affectionately holding his grandson, the painting celebrates the importance of family life. In this and his other genre paintings of the period Gysis took a keen interest in exploring Greek manners, customs, rituals, costumes and physiognomy. 

The family, as a basic unit of society, held a special significance for Gysis, and narrative paintings such as Grandfather and Grandson, The Barber and Grandfather Offering Apples to his Grandchildren,  typically built anecdotes around children in ways that fully exploited their optimism, appeal and good humour. 

While firmly rooted in German romanticism, Grandfather and Grandson superbly illustrates Gysis' transcendence beyond his masters' teachings and assimilation of other continental trends. From his early tutelage under Karl von Piloty he had developed an obsession for depicting textures. In Grandfather and Grandson the virtuoso rendition of fabrics, the contrast between young and old complexions, between rough and polished wood demonstrates the new life that had been breathed into representation by Courbet and French realism. Likewise the warm, earthy palette and strong chiaroscuro suggest the pre-occupation with light that captivated Gysis during this period. Underpinned by a powerful, yet deceptively simple draughtsmanship, these factors give the composition a rich materiality.

Gysis is known to have repeated his most popular compositions. Another version of the present work, but with differences, is in the collection of Yiannis Perdios, Athens.

We are grateful to Dr Nelly Missirli for her assistance is cataloguing this work.