EGON SCHIELE | Profilansicht eines stehenden Aktes (Ohne Kopf) (Standing Nude in Profile (without head))

Estate of the Artist
Melanie Schiele Schuster (the artist's sister), Vienna
Rudolf Leopold, Vienna
Galerie Welz, Salzburg
Private Collection, Salzburg
Thence by descent to the present owner

Jane Kallir, Egon Schiele, The Complete Works, London, 1998, no. 2289, illustrated p. 616

Executed on cream wove paper, not laid down, affixed to the mount with photo-corners on all four corners. The sheet is lightly time-stained and the left edge is unevenly cut. There are four minor tears along the lower edge (the largest of which measures approx 0.5cm), and towards the lower part of the left edge (measuring approx 0.4cm). The line of the crayon is strong and this work is in overall good condition.
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Profilansicht eines stehenden Aktes was executed during the last year of Egon Schiele's life in 1918. At the age of twenty-eight, Schiele died, consumed by the Spanish flu that ravished Vienna that winter. On his deathbed, he muttered: ‘Now the war is over and I must go’ (quoted in Jane Kallir, Egon Schiele: Drawings and Watercolours, London, 2003, p. 447). Drawings such as the present work have an added poignancy, showing that the artist disappeared at the height of his artistic power. By then, Vienna had also learnt to respect and celebrate his art; at the Secession exhibition that year Schiele was given a central place, following in Gustav Klimt’s steps as the city’s leading artist.