Philhellenic: Munich H. Kohler c1835. Tinted lithograph, as issued, of Iakovos Tombaziz from Peter von Hess's Album of Greek Heroism, or the Deliverance of Greece / Griechenlands Befreiung ... in XXXIX Bildern.[ First edition.] within decorative borders incorporating captions in Greek, German, French & English. The borders are decorated with guns, swords and helmets with the Greek flag to the left; on the right a crucifix and other emblems of the Christian church; at the top Turkish weapons, laid down, with a fez ,and below, sails and naval instruments. Iakovos "Yiakoumakis" Tombazis c. 1782-1829) was a merchant and ship-owner from the Greek island of Hydra who became the first Admiral of the Greek Navy, during the Greek War of Independence. In 1818, he was initiated into the Filiki Eteria, which was preparing the ground for the revolt. When the war broke out, his fellow islanders made Tombazis admiral of the fleet of Hydra. He took part in several clashes against the Sultan's Navy in the eastern Aegean and soon realized that the Greek warships, being mostly converted and armed merchantmen, could not face the Ottoman ships of the line in conventional combat. He therefore proposed the use of fireships instead, and sent Dimitrios Papanikolis to burn the Turkish frigate Moving Mountain anchored at Eresos on Lesbos. Image bright and clean; light spotting to blank borders. Peter( Heinrich Lambert} von Hess 1792-1871, was a German painter, known for historic paintings, especially of the Napoleonic Wars and the Greek War of Independence. In 1833, at Ludwig's request, he accompanied Otto of Greece to the newly formed Kingdom of Greece, where at Athens he gathered materials for pictures of the war of liberation. He stayed nine months in Greece, interviewing heroes and eyewitnesses of the 1821 revolution. His first- hand knowledge of the heroes gives power to his work. He drew 39 historical persons The sketches which he then made were placed, forty in number, in the Pinakothek, after being copied in wax on a large scale by Nilsen, in the northern arcades of the Hofgarten at Munich, [sadly now destroyed]. It should be noted that Hess was not present during the Revolution; the paintings are representations of reported events. many are of Greek victories, or of heroic deaths of the Greek leaders. Not in Blackmer ,Droulia or Contominas. Philhellenic Iakovos "Yiakoumakis" Tombazis
