Egon Schiele

Broncia Koller (mother of the sitter; acquired directly from the artist)
Sale: Dorotheum, Vienna, 26th March 1965, lot 312
Feigen Gallery, New York
Sale: Christie's, New York, 13th May 1998, lot 105
Purchased at the above sale by the family of the present owner

Munich, Haus der Kunst, Egon Schiele, 1975, no. 262, illustrated in the catalogue

Apollo, vol. LXXXI, no. 40, London, June 1965, illustrated p. 513
Jane Kallir, Egon Schiele: The Complete Works, London, 1998, no. 2224, illustrated p. 609
Jane Kallir, Egon Schiele: Drawings and Watercolours, London, 2003, illustrated in colour p. 461

Executed on buff-coloured wove paper, not laid down, T-hinged to the mount at the top two corners, floating in the mount. There is a small supported tear to the upper left corner. There are paper remnants towards the top two corners on the reverse, due to previous mounting. There are tape remnants to all four corners on the reverse of the sheet with associated discolouration, probably due to previous mounting. There is a tiny paper loss to the upper right corner. Apart from some light studio dirt and minor time staining to the extreme edges, this work is in good condition. Colours: The paper tone as well as the greens and reds are warmer, and the blue is more vibrant in the original.
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The sitter of this beautiful and elegant portrait is Silvia Koller, who herself was an artist and whose father, Hugo Koller, became one of Schiele's patrons around 1918. According to Jane Kallir, 'The painter Silvia Koller was the daughter of Broncia and Hugo Koller. The initials "O.W." indicate that her portrait was done in Oberwaltersdorf, where the Kollers had a summer home. Schiele also painted Hugo and drew his son Rupert' (J. Kallir, op. cit., 1998, p. 609). Hugo Koller was a successful industrialist, and subject of a monumental portrait in oil, painted by Schiele in 1918, now in the Österreichische Galerie in Vienna (fig. 1).

By 1918 Schiele was recognised as a master draughtsman, and had reached a maturity which was particularly evident in his renderings of female models. No longer the adolescent focusing almost entirely on their sexuality, he was now able to render his female sitters with a sense of alertness and individuality, beautifully rendered in the present work. Writing about his portraiture from this last phase of his life, Jane Kallir observed: 'While Schiele's paintings of men can be perfunctory, suggesting a task done more for money than for love, the women in the drawings are invariably alert, vibrant human beings with a palpable presence. Just as Schiele once boldly chronicled the power of female sexuality, he now acknowledged female identity in a manner that was, for its day, hardly less radical' (J. Kallir, op. cit., 2003, p. 442).

Fig. 1, Egon Schiele, Bildnis Dr. Hugo Koller, 1918, oil on canvas, Österreichische Galerie, Vienna