Gathering the Nets

Down in the lower left corner, dark against the water, the painter signed it "C. Bolanachi München 71". Bolanachi is the Italian form of his name that Volanakis used in those years. München is Munich, and Munich has no sea, so this sunrise over open water was composed in a studio in Bavaria.

The National Gallery in Athens points out that the light comes from behind, from deep in the picture, which is why the boat and the fishermen hauling in their net read almost as silhouettes against a bright sky. The gallery groups the canvas with the first impressionist stirrings in Greek painting, and puts the word impressionist in quotation marks itself.

The museum only bought it in 2002. Its director, Marina Lambraki-Plaka, later said it had come very cheaply, because the shipowners who usually collect Volanakis buy pictures of ships, and fishermen at work in a small boat were not what they were after.