Polychronis Lembessis

Galerie Eliades, Athens
Purchased circa 1953 by the family of the present owner; thence by descent

Few figurative works by Lembessis are known and large scale canvases such as Young Girl with Distaff and Spindle are extremely rare. Georgios Jakobides also treated this subject, and it is likely that both artists used the same model.  

After excelling at the Athens School of Fine Arts, Lembessis received a scholarship to study at the Munich Academy. He remained in Munich until 1879, establishing a close friendship with Nicholas Gysis who was also working in the Bavarian capital.

This vigorous craftsman, who was condemned in his lifetime to obscurity because of his lack of knowledge of the world, is today considered one of the most significant Greek painters of his time.... He mainly painted portraits, but also landscapes, still-lifes and other small pictures. His plastic power in rendering flesh, and in handling masses, is often astonishing. His matter is full of the sap of life. He rendered his people and objects with a fluency of brush that produces brilliant effects, and gives life and realism to his canvas, together with great beauty' (Marinos Kalligas, Greek Painters of the Nineteenth Century, Athens, 1957, p. 23).

The present work is evidence of Lembessis' early fascination with capturing the human form through the use of light. Like Jakobides, Vokos and Gysis, and inspired by the paintings of Courbet, Lembessis depicted his subjects with absolute realism, using the inference of light and colour as his basic tool to render skin-tones.