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Oil on canvas. Signed lower left: “AL. KALVODA”, original housing. According to the expert opinion prepared by PhDr. Mgr. Michael Zachař, “Over the past quarter century, few large paintings have appeared by Alois Kalvoda, one of the most important representatives of the famous Mařák School. However, this very suggestive painting belongs to one of the lost segments in Kalvoda's early development, which helped to shape the character of the emerging generation of young artists. Worth noting here is the very modernly applied foreground, where the painter seemingly has nothing to paint, but he takes on the difficult task with stunning mastery. It heralds one of Kalvoda's most important feats as an artist – his Dreams series. The total quality, especially the mastery of the painting and emotional eloquence, provide grounds for dating this excellent, monumental canvas to 1900–1902, i.e., the beginning of the artist's peak as a mature painter. The painting can be classified alongside several important items in Kalvoda's catalogue and among the sovereign oil paintings hanging in the Moravian Gallery in Brno (Autumn Sun; The Path). This is an exceptional discovery of a Kalvoda painting of elite gallery quality.” Exhibited: 1902, Mánes exhibition at the Hagenbund in Vienna. The painting is from a major Prague collection.