The Reception of Lord Byron at Missolonghi

A boat crossed the lagoon at Missolonghi a little after eleven in the morning on 5 January 1824, and the crowd that had been waiting on the shore since dawn fired muskets in salute. That arrival is what the painting stages. Byron is near the centre in a dark coat and a pale cloak, with Edward Trelawny, who had sailed out with him, at his shoulder. The man in Western clothes among the armed chieftains is Alexandros Mavrokordatos, who had spent months writing to him to ask him to come, and who was counting on the money and the reputation that came with him.

Vryzakis arranged the rest like a ceremony. A bishop raises his hand in blessing, a priest holds up an icon of the Resurrection, women kneel with their children at the left. Greek art historians have long pointed out how stiff the figures are.

What followed is not in the picture. Byron took a body of Souliot fighters into his pay and planned an attack on the Ottoman fortress at Lepanto that never happened, then caught a fever and died in the town on 19 April. Behind the crowd, over the roofs, the painter put a ruined minaret.