On the Terrace

In the spring of 1897 Greece went to war with the Ottoman Empire over Crete and was beaten within about a month. That same year in Paris, where he had lived for over 20 years, Iakovos Rizos signed this canvas "Rizo 97" on the floor tiles at the lower left.

The National Gallery in Athens describes a terrace in Plaka, the old quarter under the Acropolis, with a cavalry officer reciting verse to two ladies. The Greek critic Christoforos Marinos reads it differently. He thinks Rizos built the view from memory and from photograph albums of the city, that no such house stands in Plaka, and that the insignia on the officer's collar belong to an artillery colonel, a soldier at leisure in the year of defeat.

The Acropolis glows in the sunset behind them, and on the inlaid table at the right stands a carafe of pale pink wine with three glasses. In 2021 the Louvre put this scene on the poster of its exhibition on Paris and Athens.