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During Friedrich’s lifetime, just as today, the clothes people wore could signal their political convictions. In this night-time scene, the two men so enthralled by the moon and evening star are dressed in wide-leg trousers, long coats and large velvet berets – typical elements of the ‘old German’ style costumes modelled on fashions in the years of the Protestant Reformation.

Friedrich’s painting dates from 1819, and so is just four years after the Congress of Vienna which largely reinstated absolutism in Europe. During the wars of liberation against Napoleon, hopes grew in Germany for a post-Napoleonic order of national unification on the basis of liberty and rights – but such hopes came to nothing. Instead, the old feudal structures were still in place. Germany may now have been a confederation, but it was still a loose association of kingdoms and principalities. At that time, ‘old German’ style costumes were worn, above all, by students with liberal and democratic beliefs who longed for a national German state. Through their clothes, they expressed their resistance to the ruling powers – and their message made itself felt. The same year Friedrich painted this picture, the ‘old German’ style of clothes was banned. This was part of a raft of measures known as the “demagogue persecution”. Designed to nip any revolutionary activities in the bud, this included the systematic persecution of political leaders and agitators.

In that sense, Friedrich had chosen a bold composition and was well aware he might easily find himself in the sights of the authorities. To visitors to his studio, his comment – half-concerned and half-joking – on the two men and their night-time excursion was: “They are fomenting demagogue intrigues.”