Horses in Landscape

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Horses in Landscape is a small 1911 watercolour with pencil by the German artist Franz Marc. It is probably a study for his larger painting Blue Horses (also 1911).

What it shows
- Three horses painted in brown-blue, seen from the side or from behind, with their heads bowed to the left.
- They stand in a mountainous landscape under a sky with white clouds.
- Two white tree trunks appear diagonally in the foreground and background.
- The work is on brown paper with irregular edges and is signed on the left edge without a year. It measures 12.1 by 19.6 cm.

Relation to Blue Horses
- In the same year, Marc created Blue Horses in oil on canvas (106 by 181 cm) with the same motif, but much brighter colors: blue horses and a red/purple landscape.
- He also painted Blue Horse I and Blue Horse II in 1911.
- For Marc, blue became an essential color, symbolizing spiritual ideas and the male principle. The blue horses express a longing for spiritual freedom from earthly weight.

Later works and mystery
- In 1913 he painted The Tower of Blue Horses, again with blue horses; its location has been unknown since 1945.

Provenance and rediscovery
- On 5 November 2013, the painting reappeared during the Schwabing Art Find and was shown at a press conference about Hildebrand Gurlitt’s collection.
- The collection had been confiscated by Augsburg prosecutors in February 2012 and became public in November 2013.
- Before 1937 the watercolour belonged to the Moritzburg Art and Industry Museum in Halle and was acquired by its director Max Sauerlandt in 1914. A museum employee later recognized the work, which had previously only been seen in black and white.
- The Nazi regime considered the work degenerate, confiscated it, and it later came into Hildebrand Gurlitt’s possession. The Moritzburg Museum now aims to have it returned.