Riding Couple (Reitendes Paar)

1906–07

Oil on canvas, 55.4 × 50.7 cm. Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus und Kunstbau München, Munich

Two figures in Russian dress share a dappled horse among birch trunks, with a domed city like the Kremlin across the river. Scholar Vivian Endicott Barnett groups such Russian folk subjects with the work he made abroad.

Painted in winter 1906–07, while the artist lived at Sèvres, near Paris.
Look at the far bank: towers and onion domes glitter in a band of light above the dark water.
Small dabs of bright paint sit on a dark ground, like beads sewn on cloth. A tempera study and pencil sketches came first.
The museum connects it with Symbolism and Jugendstil, styles that put mood ahead of observation. The horse and rider, later a key motif in his art, already appear.
Left to Gabriele Münter by the artist, it was hers from 1926; she gave it to the museum in 1957.

Image: Lenbachhaus, Munich · CC0 1.0