This masterpiece by Volanakis presents the panoramic view of a harbour with anchored ships. The main theme is travellers boarding on a three-masted sailboat, with the rest of the imagery developing around it.
On the right, he presents the harbour dock and the long beach area with anchored sailboats, boats and a steamship. On land, he depicts a cluster of trees and various buildings in front of bare massifs, with a lighthouse and a steamship in the background. Opposite, on the left side, the land is depicted with two buildings and lush vegetation in the lowlands, and barren in the mountains. Close to land, there are two boats with tied sails and two fishermen conversing on deck. In the centre is the passenger ship and alongside it are five boats with many people preparing to board.
The rigging, the hulls of the ship and the two fishing boats have been rendered in great detail, while the colourful parasols stand out among the passengers.
In this work, Volanakis brings together many of his favourite individual pictorial themes: the tranquil seascape of the harbour, the alluring coast, the different types of sailboats, the fishing boats, the transport skiffs, the genre scene.
Marilena Z. Kassimati (curator), Constantinos Volanakis: Poet of the Sea, exhibition catalogue, Aikaterini Laskaridis Foundation, Hellenic Maritime Museum, Athens 2009, pp. 107.
Takis Mavrotas (curator), Constantinos Volanakis: The Father of Greek Seascape Painting, exhibition catalogue, B&M Theocharakis Foundation for the Fine Arts, Athens 2018, p. 48.
Thodoris Koutsogiannis (curator), Constantinos Volanakis: Nostos of the Sea. Artworks from the Aikaterini Laskaridis Foundation collection, exhibition catalogue, Municipal Art Gallery of Chania, pp. 72-73 (no date).