Georgios Margaritis

Athens had been the capital of Greece for only two years when Margaritis came back from Paris in 1836, trained as a painter and lithographer, and was appointed the first professor of painting at the Evelpidon School, the army's academy for cadets. He set up a studio of his own with a lithographic press in it, and together with his brother Philippos he opened the first photographic studio in the city. From 1843 to 1853 the two of them taught at the School of Arts without being paid.

What he painted was largely the men of the 1821 revolution, in a neoclassical manner, drawn precisely and tidied up a good deal: Rigas Feraios in 1836, Markos Botsaris, Karaiskakis riding at the Acropolis in 1844. A canvas of Karaiskakis wounded won a silver medal at the Athens Olympia of 1870, a revived competition that handed out prizes for art and industry as well.

The brothers are still confused with each other. Philippos, four years older and remembered as the first Greek photographer, tends to absorb the credit, and the Portrait of a Lady with Feather of about 1850 is one of the pictures the National Gallery in Athens gives to Georgios while other records put it under his brother's name.