Rare painting by Gyzis in Greece for the first time
The Royal Suite of the Grande Bretagne Hotel hosted a work of art painted in 1884 by Nikolaos Gyzis to mark the birth of his only son and youngest child Honoufrios-Telemachos, a masterpiece that had passed into the hands of Americans (as an inheritance), who knew the value of the painting but not the name of the artist. They sent a photograph of the painting to Sotheby’s in New York who referred it to the London office where the head of Greek Sales, art critic Constantinos Frangos, recognized it as the work of Gyzis (1842-1901). The painting, which had never been brought to Greece but had been sold in Munich by the artist, was auctioned at Sotheby’s in November of last year, attracting a great deal of interest, and was bought by Athanassios Laskaridis, who with his brother Panos Lazaridis are the main shareholders in the Grande Bretagne Hotel. Laskaridis told us that the painting belongs to the Costas Laskaridis family and has been hung in the 400-square-meter dining room of the hotel’s Royal Suite. According to Frangos, the painting was sold for 1 million euros.
