Nicholas Gysis Greek, 1842-1901

Acquired by the mother of the present owner circa 1955; thence by descent

(Possibly) Montandon, Gysis, 1902, p. 101
 

With the birth of his five children in the late 1870s and the 1880s began a period of personal happiness and fulfilment for Gysis that found expression in his genre paintings of that time. For the subjects of these paintings Gysis drew almost exclusively on the everyday life of humble, honest people, and favoured depictions of children, a universally popular subject. Gysis excelled in particular at the rendition of interiors and the representation of figures within them. What is remarkable about the present work is the precision of rendition, which is a hallmark of Gysis's best works from this period, and which is reminiscent of the works of his former teacher, Karl von Piloty, and his friend Franz von Defregger.

Typically, Gysis's genre paintings tell a story, and the present work is no exception. Here the viewer witnesses the first visit to the newborn, who is proudly presented to his siblings and other family members. Even the family dog takes an interest in the new arrival and watches attentively. Happy family re-unions were a popular subject in German nineteenth-century genre painting, and it is possible that Gysis was inspired by works such as Georg Meyer von Bremen's Der Wochenbesuch (The First Visit to the Newborn) (see fig. 2) or Ludwig Knaus’ Die Taufe (The Baptism). It is also probable that the painting was directly inspired by the birth of Gysis’ son Tilemachos in 1884.

Having remained in the same family collection in the United States for over fifty years, The New Arrival is a previously unrecorded work and exciting re-discovery. Gysis executed a number of preliminary pencil sketches for this work (see fig. 3), which are now in the collection of the National Gallery and Alexandros Soutzos Museum, Athens. 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 The New Arrival was sold to a collector in the United States shortly after its conception.

We are grateful to Dr. Nelly Missirli for her assistance in the cataloguing of this work.

FIG. 1: Nicholas Gysis, Peek-a-Boo, 1882 @ National Gallery and Alexandros Soutzos Museum, Athens

FIG. 2: Georg Meyer von Bremen, Der Wochenbesuch, Private Collection

FIG. 3: Nicholas Gysis, Preliminary study for the present work @ National Gallery & Alexandros Soutzos Museum, Athens