Caique at Spetses

Down in the lower right, in Greek, this canvas carries a place and a day: Spetses, 16 June 1877. Two months earlier Russia had declared war on the Ottoman Empire, and Greece spent the following year arguing over whether to join. Its army crossed into Thessaly in February 1878 and was pulled back within weeks. None of that reaches the anchorage here. A sailing ship rides with her sails hanging slack, two men row out towards her, and an empty dinghy trails at her stern. The island had built and owned working vessels like this one for generations before steam took the trade away. It came to the National Gallery as a gift from Argyris Hatziargyris, and it is a small thing on the wall, 29 by 39 centimetres, the size a painter carries down to the water and back.