Lot 20AR
Constantinos Parthenis(Greek, 1878-1967)Mountaneous Landscape, Macedonia 18 x 18 cm.
18 November 2020, 14:00 GMT
London, New Bond StreetSold for £9,562.50 inc. premium
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Constantinos Parthenis (Greek, 1878-1967)
Mountaneous Landscape, Macedonia
signed and inscribed 'PARTHENIS/MACEDOINE' (lower right)
oil on canvas
18 x 18 cm.
signed and inscribed 'PARTHENIS/MACEDOINE' (lower right)
oil on canvas
18 x 18 cm.
Footnotes
Provenance
Given as a gift from the artist to Sofia Laskaridou and thence by descent to the present owner.
Following his seven-year stay in Vienna, Parthenis came to Athens for the first time in the summer of 1903 to participate in the Athens International Exhibition, where he was awarded a silver diploma. His first Greek landscapes date from that time. The next year he travelled for four months in the region of Macedonia, which was still under Ottoman rule, perhaps due to his father's Macedonian roots. There, he made many landscape pictures, including views of Mount Pangaion, in a neo-impressionist style.1
In a 1904 issue of the Pinakothiki journal we read: "The music of colours, first introduced by Klimt, was taken up only by Parthenis among Greek artists."2 In these enchanting landscape gems, the poetic atmosphere, subtle colour harmonies, absence of human figures, solemn remoteness and sharp brushstrokes that transform the canvas into a gleaming tapestry of colour touches, leave no doubt that Parthenis had assimilated the achievements of the great Viennese symbolist.
During his spell in Vienna (1895/6-1903), the artist probably travelled to Paris in 1900 on the occasion of his participation in the Exposition International Universelle,3 and met the young painter Sophia Laskaridou (1882-1965), who was studying at the Académie Julian (1900-1901). In his first solo exhibition in Athens in 1901, Parthenis showed a series of remarkable portraits of beautiful Sophia, whom he was possibly in love with.4
1 See Pinakothiki journal, December 1904, p. 198. See E. Mathiopoulos, "Costis Parthenis" [in Greek] in Costis Parthenis, Epta Imeres - Kathimerini weekly magazine, July 27, 1997, p. 4; The Greek Painters, vol. II, 20th Century, Melissa editions, Athens 1975, pp. 14, 19, 29; E. Mathiopoulos, The Life and Work of Costis Parthenis [in Greek], K. Adam editions, Athens 2008, p. 36.
2 "Painting" [in Greek], Pinakothiki journal, January 1904, p. 224.
3 See E. Mathiopoulos, "Costis Parthenis" [in Greek] in Costis Parthenis, Epta Imeres - Kathimerini weekly magazine, July 27, 1997, p. 3,
4 D. Iliopoulou-Rogan, Sophia Laskaridou (1882-1965) [in Greek], Livanis editions, Athens 2007, pp. 36, 47.