Portrait of Nicolas Ionides (1815-1873), half-length, in Greek costume

Nicolas Ionides (1815-1872) was the son of the founder of the eponymous firm of Greek merchants that established a network of trading posts from Athens to Constantinople, via Bucharest to London and Manchester. Watts painted numerous members of the family, notably Alexander Constantine Ionides and his wife Euterpe, and their children Constantine Alexander, Aglaia, Luke and Alecco, 1840, sold at Sotheby’s, London, 7 June 2005, lot 6, and now at Watts Gallery Artist’s Village, Compton, Surrey. Nicolas was Alexander Constantine’s brother, and the two portraits must have been worked on in close succession as ours is dated 1843. Like his nephews in the group portrait Nicolas is painted in traditional Greek dress, celebrating the family's Greek heritage. Nicolas’s nephew, Constantine Alexander, left his extraordinary collection of pictures to the V&A. Indeed, it was under Watts’ guidance that the family collected artists at the time considered avant-garde – William Blake and Samuel Palmer, and later Whistler and Burne-Jones. Another portrait of Nicolas exists by Watts, currently untraced.