On the cusp of Neo-primitivsm, Nuit d’hiver represents a pivotal moment in Goncharova’s stylistic development. There is still some sense of perspective and of a natural light source, and colour is used to conjure a mood and time of day rather than as pure decoration. However, the sinewy lines of the tree trunks; the frieze-like arrangement of the figures and dog in profile; and the surprising injection of ochre to contrast with the blueish-purple tones all herald what was to come. Given the first appearance of Goncharova’s Neo-primitivist canvases would be at the Stefanos exhibition which opened in Moscow in December 1907 it is most likely that this work dates to earlier that year.

The canvas bears the date 1898 along the unpainted strip at the bottom together with the French title and the artist’s name in Latin letters. The problem of accurately dating Goncharova’s work is well-documented, and more often than not she did not sign, title or date her paintings until they were sent for exhibition, but the date here clearly does not relate to the year of execution. The two elegant women out walking with a dog are wearing dresses with bustles, a style that was fashionable towards the end of the 19^th century and it is therefore possible that the date refers to the year which is being depicted. In 1898 Goncharova turned 17 and graduated from the Fourth Gymnasium for Young Ladies in Moscow, it would be three years before she would enter the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. There, she initially studied sculpture and up until 1905 she only entered her sculptures into exhibitions. Even in 1906 most of the works shown in group exhibitions were pastels rather than easel paintings. Unusually, on the reverse of this painting is a second composition in oil of snow-covered traditional wooden buildings.

In Ilya Zdanevich’s list of Goncharova’s early works, published in 1913 under the pseudonym Eli Eganbury, there are a number of entries which might relate to the present lot however it is not possible to narrow it down to any one in particular with any degree of certainty. This task is not helped by the fact that the dating in Eganbury is equally problematic. In the 2002 Russian Museum book on the paintings of Goncharova’s Russian period, Eganbury’s list is published accompanied by reproductions of a few of her paintings. The caption for the illustration of Nuit d’hiver suggests it relates to a 1905 entry for 20 works belonging to a series entitled Tsaritsyno – Park and Surroundings. Given the sheer quantity it seems more likely that these 20 works are a group of pastels or graphic works. More convincing is the artist’s first biographer Mary Chamot’s suggestion that the work might be one of those titled Hoarfrost (Inei), possibly Hoarfrost, Night (Inei, Noch’).

Chamot dates the present lot to 1904, and this is the date repeated most frequently in all the literature since. She remarks upon the influence of the Blue Rose group on Goncharova’s palette of blues and greys, the graduated tones of which dominated the symbolist painters’ palettes and were intended to evoke the mysterious liminal realms of water, night and dreams. The first and last Blue Rose exhibition was held in Moscow in 1907. As well as the influence of the Symbolists in the distinctive colour scheme, in terms of the subject of Nuit d'hiver, there is a more than a nod to the art of their founding fater, Viktor Borisov-Musatov, with the two women in old-fashioned dress promenading in a landscaped park. These are quite clearly smartly-dressed city dwellers at their leisure, not the peasant figures or provincial types who would soon become the subjects of her neo-primitivist canvases.

For an artist who so often worked in cycles, the seasons are of particular significance to Goncharova. Marina Tsvetaeva, the poet, friend and childhood neighbour of the artist, wrote of the role of the seasons in Goncharova’s work: ‘Summer was for her the acquisition, not of material things, but of skills, of experiences. Summer was credit, winter was debit. In summer her painting lives, eats and drinks, in winter it works. Winter is Moscow. Her Moscow works are ambitious in their concept, summer is a time for sketching.’ (M.Tsvetaeva, ‘Pervaya Goncharova’, Natal’ya Goncharova (Zhizn’ i tvorchestvo), 1929).

The elegant balustrade and dress of the women also point to Moscow as the setting for this winter scene. According to Chamot, Goncharova would often go to Petrovsky Park in the North West of the city while a student to seek out the woods, birds and animals she so missed from her childhood in Tula. The park and its pond feature throughout the seasons in many of her paintings from the 1910s and is a probable location for this scene.

The area had been a popular site for the suburban residences of well-to-do Moscow merchants since the 1830s. In 1907 Nikolai Ryabushinsky patron of the Blue Rose group and publisher and editor of the magazine Zolotoe Runo (1906-1909) begun work on a magnificent villa in the park called Black Swan. By the time of its completion the villa would be a Gesamtkunstwerk, filled with paintings by Nikolai Sapunov, Petr Utkin and decorative friezes by Pavel Kuznetsov, he also bought Goncharova’s Autumn Bouquet (Fig and Maple leaves) now in the collection of the State Tretyakov Gallery. Of the seven submissions by Goncharova listed in the catalogue for the first Zolotoe Runo exhibition in 1908, no.1 is titled Petrovsky Park.

Petrovsky Park was also the site of two of the most fashionable restaurants in Moscow at the time. The Mavritania with its 10 pavilions was only open from May to November, and Strelna which was open all year round but with its famous winter garden filled with palms and tropical plants was a winter refuge for Muscovites and, with its resident dancers and Gypsy choirs, the best place in Moscow to listen to Gypsy music. All were welcome, and all came: the nobility, merchants, students, foreigners, performers, artists and prostitutes. (Ryabushinsky was evidently a patron for he was involved in an incident at the restaurant in 1910 that made the local news.) An archival photograph of the exterior of the restaurant dating to the same period as Nuit d’hiver shows the stone balustrade on top of a low wall, apparently identical to the one depicted in the painting (fig.2). In a further link between the artists, their patrons and the restaurant, the crockery at Strelna was produced by the manufactory of Matvei Kuznetsov, in whose house the 1907 Blue Rose exhibition was held.

Of the nineteen oils from Goncharova’s Russian period that Mary Chamot illustrates on colour plates in her 1972 book, thirteen are either in museum collections or on permanent loan to museums. Of the remaining six, Nuit d’hiver (fig.4) is one of only four whose present whereabouts are known and therefore its appearance at auction today represents an exceptionally rare opportunity to acquire a work from this period.