File talk:Dupre - Foto Pikos from Souli.jpg

Model's signature and name

This image bears two signatures: it is signed by the artist himself (Louis Dupré) at the bottom right of his painting, but also by his model, a Souliot that Dupré met at Corfu, who -admiring the accuracy of his likeness, according to this anonymous piece- wrote down his name on its left side. The model's name and consequently the title of the image as well is given as "Foto Pikos". The same rendering of this Souliot's name is found at the tile of a different uploading of the same image, in accordance with the caption at the bottom of the image. This second file is -according to the source- a reproduction of page 78 from the digitized Greek 1994 translation of Dupré's book containing paintings drawn during his travels in the Hellenic lands. However, that very image --published in a Greek daily, "Ta Nea", in an article from a series of articles on anti-Ottoman rebellions that occured in Greece before the Greek War of Independence-- is captioned as "Φώτος Σέχος" ( i.e. Fotos Sehos/Sechos -- "ch" as in the Scottish loch) with the citation in the caption referring to the same page (78) of the same book, Dupré's Greek translation of 1994.

Admittedly, this Souliot is described as "Photos Picos" in a text produced very close to Dupré's original publication. So, the Révue Encyclopedique of 1826 informed its readers that (p. 537):

"Les deux livraisons publiées [par Dupré] contiennent, savoir; la premiere, deux Suliotes, dont l'un est Photo-Pikos, fils de Tzavellas, qui a acquis une juste célébrité par son courage et son patriotisme [...]"

("The two volumes published [by Dupré] contain, namely; the first, two Souliots, of which one is Foto-Pikos, son [sic!] of Tzavellas, who has justly gained fame for his courage and his patriotism [...]").

The Mercure of 1826 announced that (pp. 143-4)

"[Dupré] a trouvé a Corfou [sic] quelques-uns de ces éxilés, des rochers de Souli qui, plus tard, reparurent en armes dans leurs foyers. Ce naif et puissant conducteur de troupeaux que vous considérez en face (Pl. n. 1) est un parent de ce Photo-Tzavellas, en|nemi juré et souvent le vainqueur d' Ali Pacha."

("[Dupré] found in Corfou some of those exiled from the rocks of Souli, who later reappeared armed in their homeland. This unsophisticated and and mighty captain, whom you are viewing portrayed full face (pl. n. 1), is a relative of Photo-Tzavellas, a sworn ennemy and many times the conqueror of Ali pasha.")

Now, Foto Tzavellas did not even have a son called Fotos, let alone one called Fotos *Pikos*. It is not merely this glaring inaccuracy, a product of Chinese Whispers circulating in print it seems, that puts into question the reliability of the Révue. Psimouli, who signs the article at "Nea", where our Souliot is named Foto Sehos, is also the author of a doctoral dissertation on Souli and the Souliotes and the foremost Greek scholar on the matter; her differentiation should not be dismissed lightheartedly or without due consideration.

To solve this problem, it suffices to take a look at the image itself. My skills in early modern Greek palaeography are rather limited, but I tried deciphering the signature on the left of the picture. With no great effort, it reads:

"φῶτω [---]oς ἀπὸ χοριό σȣλ"

i.e. "Foto [---]os from village Soul".

In accordance with the two aforementioned versions, the three disputed letters, at the beginning of the second word, are either π-ι-κ ["Pik"] or σ-ε-χ ["Seh"]. If one notices carefully, the first of these three letters is identical with the first letter of the last word, so it must be a 'σ' [/s/], while the third is identical with the first letter of the penultimate word, hence it is a χ (/h/). It seems, then, that the signature itself reads "Foto Sehos".

What's more, there was actually a clan ("farë" in Albanian/"γένος" in Greek) called Σεχαίοι/Σεχάτες (Sehaioi/Sehates) in Souli, but no mention of a clan named "Pikaioi" or "Pikates" (Πικαίοι/Πικάτες) is to be found in Perraivos's list of Souliot clans in the last ediion of his History of Souli and Parga (Athens, 1857), pp. 17-18. Nor does any person named "Pikos" appear in the index of Psimouli's study Σούλι και Σουλιώτες (Athens, 2006) [a version of her doctoral dissertation on the Souliotes], while there are naturally mentions of members of the "Σεχάτες, γένος Σέχου" (see the index at p. 559).

I do not have Dupré's book at hand (in either its original French or its Greek edition) and chances are that due to the pandemic it will be quite a while till I will be in a position to verify that Dupré does indeed give his model's name as "Pikos". However, even if it is so, I think that, taking into account the evidence here presented, it is more likely than not that "Pikos" is not an accurate rendering of this Souliot's last name and that the gentilicium that he used to sign his portrait is "Sehos"/"Σέχος", as stated in Psimouli's article. Ασμοδαίος (talk) 13:50, 13 April 2020 (UTC)