France has loaned to Greece a painting by Eugene Delacroix depicting the fall of Missolonghi, one of the most famous episodes of the Greek war of independence, officials said Saturday.

“Greece on the Ruins of Missolonghi” was created in 1826, just months after the end of the siege of Missolonghi, one of the bloodiest episodes of the 1821-1830 war.

It has been loaned to the city’s Archaeological Museum by the Museum of Fine Arts of Bordeaux for an exhibition running from April to November.

Repeatedly besieged by the Ottomans from 1822, the plight of Missolonghi drew European attention to the Greek struggle — especially after Lord Byron died there in 1824.

Greece on the Ruins of Missolonghi is an 1826 oil painting by French painter Eugène Delacroix. Photo: Musée des Beaux-Arts-mairie de Bordeaux

“Even today, the Philhellenic movement still holds the sacrifice at Missolonghi in its collective conscience,” Culture Minister Lina Mendoni told a news conference in the western Greek city.

The Paris subway station Botzaris honours one of the Greek leaders who fell in the Missolonghi campaign, the Souliot chief Markos Botsaris.

Source: AFP