Konstantinos Volanakis

Born in Heraklion, Crete, in 1837 to a prosperous merchant family, he spent his school years on Syros, where he apprenticed with the painter Andreas Kriezis. Beginning in 1856, he worked in Trieste as a bookkeeper for the Afentoulis trading house. He entered the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich in 1864, studying under Karl von Piloty. In 1866 he won a competition announced by Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria for a painting of the Battle of Lissa (today Vis, Croatia). In 1877 he painted "The Battle of Trafalgar", which the British Admiralty purchased.

He returned to Greece in 1883 and was appointed professor at the Athens School of Fine Arts, where he taught until 1903. In 1895 he founded and directed the Piraeus Art Center. His students included Michalis Economou and the shipowner Ioannis Koutsis. He is considered the father of Greek marine painting. He painted seascapes, ports, naval battles, fireships, festooned vessels, sailing ships, frigates and fishing boats, tides and shorelines, as well as historical events such as "The Inauguration of the Corinth Canal" (1893) and "The Landing of Karaiskakis at Faliro" (1895). After 1903 his health declined. He took part in numerous exhibitions in Greece and abroad—in Vienna, Munich, Paris, London, and Bordeaux. He died in poverty in Piraeus in 1907.