Anchored boats

The gallery dates this to the second half of the 1880s, the years when Greek shipowners were moving their money out of sail and into steamers. Volanakis gave the old fleet a canvas over two metres wide. Brigs ride at anchor in flat water with their canvas half furled, a low headland closes the bay behind them, and there is no wind anywhere in the picture. Ships of this kind had carried Greek grain out of the Black Sea for most of the century, and by about 1900 steam had taken those routes from them. In the foreground two open boats have drifted together, one with a canvas awning rigged over it, and a man in a straw hat stands in the bow of the other with his hands empty.