Page 232 - Beholding Liberty!

232 BEHOLDING LIBERTY!
ΙΙ.4.3
Nicolas Victor Fonville (1805-1856) known as “Fonville Père” Heroic resistance of the besieged Greeks at Missolonghi, ca. 1825-26
coloured lithograph, 22 × 25 cm
signed: V. Fonville (bottom left) Lit. de H. Brunet et C.ie à Lyon. (bottom right)
inscribed: AU BÉNÊFICE DES GRECS. (top centre) Défense heroiques des Grecs assiégés dans Missolonghi par l’armée d’Ibrahim-pacha, fortes / de 25 mille hommes. Explosion de la mine pratiquée dans leur rebranchemens au moment où les / Turco-Egyptiens venaient de sen emparers (low centre)
Hellenic Parliament Art Collection, inv. n. 589
THIS WORK by the painter and printmaker Nicolas Victor Fonville (1805-1856), better known as Fonville Père (father of the painter Horace An- toine Fonville), was lithographed by H. Brunet & Cie Lyon, where Fonville was employed.
A landscape painter, he approached the subject of the Heroic Resistance of the Greeks Besieged in Missolonghi in a generic, symbolic manner, rather than focusing on an accurate description of the setting and events. An imaginary Missolonghi for-
tress is shown in the background – rather than in the foreground; outside the walls, there are figures of soldiers from Ibrahim Pasha’s Turkish-Egyptian army; an explosion adds drama to the scene. In the foreground, the rocky landscape is not a re- alistic depiction of the landscape of Missolonghi; rather, it seeks to underline the unwavering deter- mination of the town’s heroic defenders. Accord- ing to the informative inscription at the bottom of the folio, the Missolonghi fighters resisted a numerically superior army of 25,000 men.