I finally managed to track down the third and final painting of Nikiforos Kalogeras to the Hall of Ceremonies of the University of Athens. After hiring a photographer to take a picture of it, I now have all three portraits in a high resolution, digital format.

The Nikiforos Kalogeras page has been updated with images of all three oil paintings, what year each painting was made (if known), the names of the painters (if known), and detailed information of the location of each painting.

This project that I’m engaged in is mostly concerned with text, but searching for Kalogeras’ portraits added a very exciting physical element to it, almost as if I was hunting for treasure. I say “physical” while fully understanding that I was working to obtain “digital” reproductions of the art, but I have plans to give them a physical form. More on that later.

The acquisition of the last painting means that 1/3 of the 3rd portion of this project has been completed. The portion of the project that pertains to Nikiforos Kalogeras is reproduced below with checkboxes to show levels of completeness. (For the full list of the facets of the entire project, go here.)

• Locating and acquiring
  • ☑ the digital reproductions of the 3 known portraits/oil paintings of Nikiforos Kalogeras.
  • ☐ the rights for publication of those 3 portraits/oil paintings.
  • ☐ his biographical information and translating it into English.

The second bullet above is pretty much complete as well. I’m waiting on one email that confirms that I have the rights to publish the last of the paintings, and once I get it, I’ll check that one off as well. I should be getting it any day now, but most definitely before the end of next week.

Since I’m on the topic of Nikiforos Kalogeras, the last bullet is proving a challenge for me. I was pretty certain at the time of planning this list that I would be able to translate both Euthymius Zigabenus’ Commentary on the Epistles and the biography of Kalogeras simultaneously, but that amount of translation (especially switching between the Medieval Greek of the commentary and the Katharevousa of the biography) is very mentally exhausting. Because of this drain, I have put a pause on the biography, but I suppose that if I simply translate a sentence or two a day, I’ll make much more progress than what I am making now.