Fabio Fabbi

This work is a faithful copy after Jean-Léon Gérôme’s eponymous work painted in 1874, now in a private collection. Markos Botsaris (1790-1823) was a Souliot chieftain, general of the Greek revolutionary arm and hero of the Grek War of Independence. He played a key role in relieving the First Siege of Missolonghi in 1822–1823 and was awarded the title of General of Western Greece by the revolutionary Greek government. He was killed during the Battle of Karpensi and was buried in Missolonghi with full honours.

Fanny Hering, in her 1892 biography of Gérôme, observes that ‘one lingers longer over the grim-visaged Greek called Botsaris. Robed in rich apparel and bristling with costly weapons, he sits on his carven and cushioned chair, sombre and listless, gazing moodily into space. Who can divine his thoughts? Does he, like Alexander, sigh only for more worlds to conquer, or has the spirit of modern life, with its weariness and satiety, its melancholy refrain of “tout passe, tout casse, tout lasse”, penetrated even to this favoured country, where gods and goddesses in their immortal and joyous vigour once deigned to consort with humanity? Whatever the tenor of his gloomy reverie, he furnishes a fine motif for a picture. The tiled wall, with its dado of matting and little niche containing a jar of odorous spices and rose-leaves, forms a pleasing background, and the minor accessories, such as the pendant sabre and cord, the narghileh with the stem coiled like a huge serpent upon a tray, the rug stretched upon a floor covered with strange arabesques, presents a most harmonious ensemble of colouring and design.’ (Fanny Field Hering, The Life and Work of Jean-Léon Gérôme, New York, 1892, p. 235).