Julie Mathon
Associate Specialist
Lot 38AR
NIKOS ENGONOPOULOS(1907-1985)Le moine Agapios Landos
21 May 2025, 13:00 CEST
Paris, Avenue Hoche€20,000 - €30,000
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Nefeli Mandragouda
Sale Coordinator, Discovery & Greek Sales
NIKOS ENGONOPOULOS (1907-1985)
Le moine Agapios Landos
signé en grec en bas à droite
tempera à l'œuf sur panneau
55 x 42 cm. (21 5/8 x 16 9/16in.)
Peint circa 1935.
signed in Greek lower right
egg tempera on panel
signé en grec en bas à droite
tempera à l'œuf sur panneau
55 x 42 cm. (21 5/8 x 16 9/16in.)
Peint circa 1935.
signed in Greek lower right
egg tempera on panel
Footnotes
Provenance
Elli Papadimitriou collection (1906-1993, author, photographer and activist), Athens.
Given as a gift from the above to the present owner.
In 1963, at the height of his creative powers and critical acclaim as a leading surrealist painter and poet, Engonopoulos gave a lecture at the Athens Technological Institute stressing that "Byzantine art is the art form we Greeks most closely relate to. It is the duty of every Greek artist to embrace the teachings of Byzantine painting and follow its steps... I studied Byzantine art under two great masters, the esteemed Professor Andreas Xygopoulos and the renowned artist Fotis kontoglou, the painter and writer with the brave heart."1
In the early 1930s, Engonopoulos frequented Kontoglou's studio and, alongside Yannis Tsarouchis, assisted him in executing the monumental wall paintings in Kontoglou's residence in Athens' Kypriadou neighbourhood. During this period, he produced his most important works in the Byzantine manner, most of them religious icons adhering to strict iconographic conventions and painted in the traditional technique of egg tempera on wood. Here, he portrays the 17th century Greek scholar monk Agapios Landos from Crete seated on a stool and writing a religious script on a scroll. Behind him there are architectural forms stylised in the typical Byzantine fashion, while further up the symbolic representations of the sun and the moon draw from mythological and religious sources and balance the composition.2 The painting is signed "Engonopoulos the Phanariot,"3, pointing to the artist's roots in Constantinople.4
1. Epitheorisi Technis magazine, March 1963, pp. 193-197.
2. Compare C. Parthenis, Poetry, c. 1910 (Bonhams, The Greek Sale, April 26, 2016, lot 30)
3. Compare F. Kontoglou, Nikos Engonopoulos Phanariot, 1934.
4. Phanariots were members of prominent Greek families in the quarter of Phanari in Constantinople.