This lot is subject to Artist's Resale right
George Pol GEORGHIOU
Centaurine, 1959
signed and dated 2 X 59 lower left
58.5 x 38 cm
61.5 x 41 cm (with frame)
Provenance
private collection, UK.
To the present owner by descent from the collection of Shahe Guebenlian, Reuters’ man in the Middle East who also laid the foundations for the company’s commercial successes in the region.
Shahe Guebenlian, known by colleagues, businessmen and politicians alike simply as Gubby, worked for Reuters in the days when the agency’s representatives were expected to be both journalists and salesmen. He did both jobs well, occasionally brilliantly. He covered the big stories in the Middle East and Africa during the 1950s and 1960s.
Figure I (on the left ) and Figure II (3th photo)
The third photograph was taken in Shahe Guebenlian’s home.
Figure I "Lot 56 Centaurine, 1959", is seen alongside with Figure II "Village Priest, 1957" oil on wood, 93.5 x 19 cm, collection of the Bank of Cyprus Cultural Foundation.
Literature: Georghios Polyviou Georghiou, His Work 1942-1964, page 192-193.
Estimate
€ 45 000 – 70 000
Sold for € 56,439.00
The final sale price includes buyer's premium, VAT and artist's resale right (if applicable)
Notes
The phrase “Cypriot archaic figures” usually refers to figural sculpture and terracottas of the Cypro-Archaic period, broadly the eighth to early fifth centuries BC, conventionally around ca. 750-480/475 BC. This was the period of Cyprus’s city-kingdoms, when sanctuaries proliferated, and figural dedications in limestone and terracotta became one of the island’s most distinctive visual languages. Scholarship stresses that the imagery of this period mixes local, regional, Greek, Egyptian, and Near Eastern elements, producing a characteristically Cypriot synthesis rather than a simple imitation of any single source.
Typical iconographic types include horse-and-rider figures, helmeted warriors, male votaries, female plaque-like or mould-made figures often linked with Astarte/Aphrodite traditions, and a range of composite or fantastic creatures, including centaurs. Museum records show that horse-and-rider figurines were especially abundant; some were associated with sanctuaries such as Apollo Hylates at Kourion, and many figurines were also deposited in tombs. Technically, some types are handmade and solid, while others, especially many female figures, are mould-made. Painted decoration in black and red on buff terracotta is common.
Centaurs are not marginal in Cypriot coroplastic art. The Met states plainly that centaur figurines are popular in Cypriot art and are often found as offerings in sanctuaries, suggesting some religious significance. The British Museum’s published centaur from Kourion preserves exactly the kind of painted language that matters here: a buff surface, black detailing, red paint, and a hybrid human-animal form rendered schematically rather than naturalistically.
The object in the artwork appears to be a Cypriot terracotta centaur, probably Cypro-Archaic, displayed in the Cyprus Museum, Nicosia (Figure III). (4th photo)
The Cyprus Museum has major displays of terracotta figurines from Cypriot sanctuaries. Room IV is especially associated with terracotta figures from the sanctuary of Agia Eirini, including warriors, horses, chariots, bulls, and centaurs. That sanctuary was excavated by the Swedish Cyprus Expedition and was used from the Late Bronze Age to the Archaic period, roughly the 12th to 5th century BC.
What the figure represents
A centaur is a hybrid creature, part human and part horse. In Greek mythology, centaurs are usually wild, liminal beings, but in Cyprus they also appear as part of a local coroplastic, or terracotta, tradition. The Metropolitan Museum notes that centaur figurines were popular in Cypriot art and were often found as sanctuary offerings, suggesting a religious or votive meaning.
Figure IV (5th photo)
The Cypriot terracotta centaur figure that inspired George Pol Georghiou’s painting Centaurine can also be seen on the cover of Tony Spiteris’s landmark art-historical publication “Art de Chypre: des origines à l’époque romaine”, published in 1970.
Biography
George Pol GEORGHIOU, also known as George Polyviou Georghiou, was born in Famagusta in 1901 and died in Famagusta in 1972.
He studied law in London and worked as a solicitor until 1938, when he abandoned the legal profession and devoted himself entirely to painting. Largely self-taught, he developed his artistic knowledge through private study and frequent visits to museums and galleries, absorbing influences from both the art of the past and the artistic movements of his own time.
Georghiou became one of the most important figures in twentieth-century Cypriot art. His work is closely connected with the people, traditions, landscape and historical consciousness of Cyprus, particularly during the 1940s and 1950s. Through scenes of everyday life, religious imagery, symbolic compositions and landscapes, he created a deeply personal visual record of the island and its cultural identity.
His paintings are characterised by strong design, expressive figures, vivid colour and a distinctive sense of rhythm. Often monumental in feeling, his compositions combine elements of Byzantine art, folk tradition and modern European painting. His figures, frequently elongated and stylised, are set within images that convey both the dignity of Cypriot life and the poetic intensity of memory, faith and history.
George Pol Georghiou participated in exhibitions in Cyprus and abroad, including the Art Exhibition for the Assistance of the Greek Navy at APOEL Athletic Club in Nicosia in 1940 and the “Art in the Commonwealth Countries Today” exhibition at the Commonwealth Institute in London in 1962.
Today, George Pol Georghiou is recognised as one of the pioneers of modern Cypriot painting. His works are held in important public and private collections, including the A. G. Leventis Gallery, and he remains admired for his powerful contribution to the visual narration of Cyprus’s modern history.