The Betrothal of the Children

The ceremony filling this room is a real one, and the two people at the centre of it are children. Under Ottoman rule, families in Greek villages betrothed sons and daughters very young, and the gallery's own note on the painting suggests these engagements worked as a protection against abduction. Gyzis set the scene in a village house in 1877, with the relatives arranged in a crowded half circle. A priest is slipping the ring onto the boy's finger while the boy stands there baffled, the girl keeps her eyes down, and the adults are thoroughly enjoying themselves. A man in a fustanella, the pleated white kilt, holds the vessel ready for the toast. Along the right side the painter piled up cloth, copper and crockery, the corner of the canvas where he showed what he could do with texture and colour. He made more than one version of the composition, and it won him a string of prizes.