The Church of the Pantanassa, Naxos

The National Gallery will not date this one any closer than 1924 to 1928, which puts it in the last few years of the painter's life. The church of the Pantanassa on Naxos gave him a set of plain white solids to work with, a low dome, a free-standing bell gable with two pointed openings in it, a shallow blind arch on the end wall, and a courtyard wall curving across the foreground. Everything built is white or grey. The colour sits in the one tree, in the band of sea behind the roofs and in the brown hills on the far side of the water. The painting reached the collection later as a donation from Euphrosyne K. Maleas, of the painter's own family.