Erster Schnee

In the autumn of 1891 snow came early to the Oka river, south of Moscow, falling in September while the trees still held their yellow and rust-coloured leaves. Polenov was living out on his estate at Bekhovo, on the river's high bank, and the sudden white over the unfinished autumn caught him. He painted the bushes and young trees still in leaf but already dusted and bent under the first soft cover, the wide river beyond thinning into a pale haze of forming ice. He had travelled far as a younger man, through Europe and the Middle East, but by now he had settled into painting the quiet Russian country around his own house. The canvas is in the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow.