Max Liebermann can easily be considered Germany’s leading impressionist painter. For the last decade and a half of his life he was also president of the Prussian Academy of Arts in Berlin, until he was forced to resign from this prestigious post in 1933 due to his Jewish origins. Liebermann painted dozens of variations on the motif of the rider (or riders) on the beach, and he regularly crossed paths with art dealer Hildebrand Gurlitt, who bought and sold Liebermann paintings throughout the Third Reich’s twelve years of existence—in transactions with varying degrees of legality. One such Two Riders on the Beach, dating from 1901, was found in Cornelius Gurlitt’s apartment in Munich in February 2012. It was returned to the heir of its rightful owner in 2015 and has since been sold off.