This picture epitomizes the miniature-like precision of his late period, when the artist concentrated on scenes from the Tegernsee region. The riders, although in peasant dress, are painted in a serene and ordered setting, which apealed to the taste of Kobell's middle class patrons. He displays great technical skill in his treatment of perspective and shade; the bold use of diagonal shade in the foreground, without an attached form, induces an awareness of infinite space for the onlooker, extending either side of the picture. Likewise, the graduating shadow, as well as the detail of the buildings in the middle and background, create a sense of broad and distant space.

Kobell had painted the same composition in watercolour in 1830 (whereabouts unknown) (Wichmann, op. cit. no. 1479) and the arrangement of the left and right riders was repeated in 1832 (Private collection, Zurich) (Wichmann, op. cit. no. 1505). The two playing dogs in the latter picture distract the viewer's eye, as does the background storm, and it seems that his return to the tranquil composition of our picture, this time in oil, reinforces the painter's preference for complete calm.

The picture hung adjacent to his masterpiece of 1819, Isarlandschaft (Wichmann, op. cit. no. 1219) in the Neue Pinakothek, Munich from 1986 until its consignment for auction to these rooms at the end of last year.

The von Metzler family were private bankers in Frankfurt.