Minusinsk. On the way.

Vasily Surikov made this watercolor in 1873, depicting a scene along the road near Minusinsk in Siberia. The work shows horses and a traveler on the steppe, capturing the vast emptiness of the Siberian landscape. At 23 by 32.6 centimeters, the intimate scale suits the delicate watercolor medium.

Surikov painted this work while still a student at the Imperial Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg, where he studied from 1869 to 1875. Though he would become famous for large-scale history paintings depicting dramatic moments in Russian history, his early works often returned to Siberian subjects from his childhood.

Born in Krasnoyarsk in 1848, Surikov grew up surrounded by descendants of the Cossacks who had conquered Siberia centuries earlier. These roots would later inform his historical paintings exploring Russian identity and suffering. This watercolor landscape is now in a private collection, representing the artist's early engagement with the land that shaped him.