Подпись и дата справа внизу: монограмма / 1911

One of the sketches for staging the dramatic poem by G. Ibsen – "Peer Gynt", in five acts, at the Moscow Art Theater (Moscow).

The premiere took place on October 9, 1912. The sketch depicts the house of Solveig, "the priestesses of the holy hearth", where the main character returns at the end of his life. Mountains and mossy boulders are full of quiet sadness, a mountain river carries its green waters, and only a lonely house stands as a witness to the rapidly running days of life. This pastel work conveys the flavor of the northern nature, so cherished by Roerich.

"What does Peer Gynt mean for me? It is hard for me to answer this question in a few words. I will only say that if, in the Ibsen's work, a fairy tale evolved before my eyes, I would not work. But since it was a tale, first of all, it had no particular time, ethnography and geography. A fairy tale is always out of time and space. However, a certain couleur locale is unavoidable, but, in fact, it may be present in a tale as well. It evens gives it some intimacy and charm, but if the viewer can guess the epoch in the performance or refer it to some decade, I will consider it unsuccessful... What is narrated in the tale of Peer Gynt? Maybe, I understand it in a very subjective manner, but it seems to me that this fairy tale is a song about the beauty and the joy of the sacred hearth. I am sure that many people will see something different in Per Gynt, but a true work of art is valuable because everybody can see it it, as in life itself, something close, dear and interesting for him. Peer Gynt is so multifaceted that a different representation of all that is depicted therein is possible more than anywhere else".

Roerich about Per Gynt (Interview).