Georgios Jakobides

Munich, Exhibition of Fine Arts, 1886 (as The Smoker)
Berlin, Internationale Kunstausstellung, Verein Berliner Künstler, 1891, no. 536 (as The Smoker)
Athens, National Gallery and Alexandros Soutzos Museum, Jakobides Retrospective, November 2005 - January 2006

Illustrierte Zeitung, July-December 1887, p. 668
Friedrich von Boetticher, Malerwerke des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts, Leipzig, 1941, p. 607 
Olga Metzafou-Polyzou, Dictionary of Greek Artists, vol 2, Athens, 1998, p. 36 
Olga Metzafou-Polyzou, Jakobides, Athens, 1999, pp. 92-94, 339-340, no. 79, illustrated
Marina Lambraki-Plaka, National Gallery and Alexandros Soutzos Museum Calendar 2006, Georgios Jakobides (1853-1932) The Painter of Childhood, Athens, 2005, illustrated  
Olga Metzafou-Polyzou, Jakobides Retrospective, Athens, 2005, pp. 50-51, 156-157 & 301, no. 45, illustrated 
 

Jakobides acknowledged that the present work was one of his most important. The work was exhibited in Munich (1886) and Berlin (1891) as well as being reproduced with an accompanying poem in the German magazine Illustrierte Zeitung in 1887.  

Jakobides is best known for his sensitive and often humorous portrayals of children. His observations of everyday life were strongly influenced by the work of the Dutch Golden Age artist Frans Hals, reflected in the intimate yet comical subject matter as well as the sensitivity conveyed through the focused light and in each soft-edged brushstroke. These debts to naturalism and the genre scene were also due to Jakobides' introduction to the work of members of the French Realists and the Barbizon School such as Courbet and Corot, to which he would have been exposed during his time at the Munich Academy of Fine Arts.

Evident in comparison to another Jakobides oil, The Little Struggler (fig. 1), the artist favoured a coarsely-painted and neutral-toned background, in the present composition a simple backdrop to place emphasis on the large central figure, lovingly and meticulously rendered in far richer tones and values. Both paintings depict precocious boys smoking, an entertaining concept within which each boy adopts the stance and expression of the adult, and character is evoked through theme and expression. The draughtsmanship as exhibited in both works is faultless, the setting simple and secondary in importance to the figure, and the general tone light and humorous, strongly indicative of qualities inherent to Jakobides' body of work.  

The present work is especially attractive for its inclusion of the boy's traditional costume and the highly-finished quality of the figure, making it a quintessential genre scene, full of vitality, expression and sentiment.  

 FIG. 1, Georgios Jakobides, The Little Struggler, 1887, oil on canvas, Private Collection
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