Bonhams Greek Sale: painter Constantinos Parthenis hands Gabriel a lyre, not a lily

In almost every Annunciation the Archangel Gabriel arrives with a lily, the flower of Mary’s purity. In Constantinos Parthenis’s L’Annonciation he carries a lyre. That one substituted object pulls the scene from the Gospel toward Apollo, and it condenses the argument the painter spent his life making: that modern Greek art could speak Europe’s modernist language without giving up classical antiquity. Rendered in pale, translucent colour in a hushed, dreamlike space, the canvas now leads the Greek Sale that Bonhams is staging in Paris.

Assembled with Art Expertise, the auction house’s associates in Athens, the sale runs from the late nineteenth century to the present day, through Impressionism, modernism, folk tradition and Byzantine revival. In the announcement, Terpsichore Angelopoulou, director of Art Expertise, calls the Parthenis one of the most important works ever to come to auction, a picture that tries “to reconcile the modern spirit of Europe with the enduring traditions of Greece.” Bonhams reads Gustav Klimt, Maurice Denis and the Symbolists in it.

Constantinos Parthenis painting Annonciation in turquoise and pale tones, with the lyre of the Archangel Gabriel — Constantinos Parthenis, L’Annonciation. Image: Bonhams

The Parthenis carries an estimate of €250,000–350,000, and the other headline works of the 186-lot sale show how differently Greek painters answered the same question. Pericles Pantazis’s Le phare de Marseille, painted around 1881, near the end of his short life, is almost all weather: a low grey sky, milky water, a white lighthouse and a fishing boat under red sails. Bonhams presents it as the hinge of his move from Courbet’s realism toward the brighter touch of Manet and Boudin, and says it was first shown at the Salon d’Anvers in 1882 beside Manet’s A Bar at the Folies-Bergère. It is estimated at €100,000–150,000.

Fotis Kontoglou’s Le Baptême went the other way, back to Byzantium. Painted in 1923, shortly after a visit to Mount Athos, it is one of the first statements of the icon-based idiom that would make him the leading reviver of Byzantine painting in modern Greece, mixed with memories of his native Asia Minor. It carries the same €100,000–150,000 estimate.

The strongest single group belongs to Theofilos Hadjimichael, the self-taught painter of Lesbos. Anatoli (Sunrise), estimated at €60,000–80,000, sets the rising sun beside its personification as an ancient kore; Village à Lesvos (€40,000–60,000) packs a hillside with shepherds, goats, cattle and people at work.

Theofilos Hadjimichael painting Village a Lesvos, a rural scene with shepherds, goats, cattle and village houses on Lesbos — Theofilos Hadjimichael, Village à Lesvos. Image: Bonhams

Further on, Yannis Tsarouchis’s Jeune homme (€70,000–90,000) returns to his classically poised male figure, while Alexis Akrithakis is represented by Quatre histoires (€40,000–60,000) and by the recently rediscovered Rede in dem irrsinn der dich befallen hat (€100,000–150,000), shown at his 1969 exhibition in Berlin. A dedicated section on Greek women artists includes Sophia Vari’s bronze Mademoiselle (€35,000–50,000) and Chryssa’s Calligraphy I, a 1977 work on paper estimated at €12,000–18,000.

The full sale is on preview in Athens at Amalias Avenue 36 from 2 to 4 November, and selected highlights hang at Bonhams, 6 avenue Hoche, in Paris from 14 to 17 November. The auction takes place there on Wednesday 18 November. Whatever the hammer prices, the lyre makes the case on its own: Parthenis believed Greek civilisation never broke, and he painted the angel accordingly.

Tags: Bonhams, art auctions, Constantinos Parthenis, Fotis Kontoglou, Greek art, Pericles Pantazis