Constantinos Volanakis

Private Collection, United Kingdom;
thence by descent

Burning of a Turkish Flagship depicts a strategic battle scheme used by Greek revolutionary fighters to attack their Turkish oppressors which eventually lead to the liberation of Greece. The tactic of attaching a small boat laden with explosives (known as a fire ship) to the side of a frigate was used by maritime heroes such as Canaris, Papamanolis and Barbatsis. One of the most famous of such ambushes was the destruction of the 'Mansourija'. On the evening of 27 May 1821 the thirty three year old freedom fighter Dimitris Papamanolis sailed his small vessel up to the port side of the frigate and set it ablaze. The devastating fire spread throughout the Turkish ship killing 600 sailors. Another version of this composition, but smaller in size, sold at Sotheby's London on 12 May 2005, lot 10.

Another historic victory was witnessed on the night of 6^th and 7^th of June 1822 by Constantine Canaris off Chios when he destroyed the flagship of the Ottoman admiral Pasha Kara-Ali in revenge for the Massacre of Chios. When his fire ship was set ablaze and the powder keg on the Ottoman frigate caught fire, all on board perished. The devastating fire spread to other ships in the fleet and the Ottoman casualties numbered 2,000 men. Kara-Ali died later while being transported to shore.  

Off the coasts of Spetses and Hydra on 8 September 1822, during a raging sea battle, two Greek freedom fighters, Andres Pipinos from Hydra and Kosmas Barbatsis from Spetses attached their fire ships to a Turkish corvette. Pipinos's boat was detached by the Turkish crew but Barbatsis's boat exploded, damaging the Turkish flagship. In the end, although the Turks managed to save their corvette, the intervention of the fire ships caused them to retreat.

Other contemporary Greek and European painters such as Nikiforos Lytras, Vasilios Chatzis and Ivan Aivazovsky also glorified the marine angle of the Greek struggle for freedom. Lytras's monumental painting, The Sinking of a Turkish Flagship by Canaris (see fig. 1)  now in the Pinakothiki Averoff, Metsovo, portrays the moment the Turkish ship was set ablaze.

Volanakis won renown as the foremost Greek marine painter of the nineteenth century through his masterful representation of ships, detailed recordings of naval battles and sensitive rendering of atmospheric changes. In the present work, through the use of light and colour, Volanakis has presented the ambush to theatrical effect. The billowing flames from the smaller fire ship set against the tilting frigate are dramatized by a swirling cloud of smoke. Volanakis has chosen to set the scene against an almost monochromatic moonlit sky and sea, setting into relief the vibrant reds and yellows of the smoke and flames.

FIG. 1: Nikiforos Lytras, The Sinking of the Turkish Flagship by Canaris @ Pinakothiki Averoff, Metsovo 064L10103_COMP