1832-1860
Nikiforos Lytras was born in the village of Pyrgos on Tinos Island in 1832. His father, Antonis Lytras, was a folk marble sculptor who inspired him to love artistic expression. From childhood, he had shown signs of his talent in painting. His contemporaries mention that when young Nikiforos painted his teacher on the school wall, the teacher said that this child was born a painter, even before being taught painting. In 1850, at the age of 18, N. Lytras came to Athens with his father. He enrolled in the School of Arts at the Polytechnic, in the painting department. There, he was noticed by the Bavarian painter and professor Ludwig Thiersch, who employed him as his assistant for the iconography of the Russian Church of the Sotiros of Lykodimos in Athens.
As a graduate, he was assigned by the school's director, Lysandros Kautantzoglou, to replace his teacher L. Thiersch when he left.
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