Egon Schiele

Arthur Ausland, Bedford Hills, New York

Jacob Baal-Teshuva, New York

Private Collection, Japan (sold: Parke Bernet Galleries, New York, November 2, 1978, lot 133)

Private Collection (acquired at the above sale and sold: Sotheby's, New York, November 17, 1983, lot 339)

Fuji Gallery, Tokyo (acquired at the above sale)

Wildenstein Ltd., Tokyo (sold: Sotheby's New York, November 12, 1996, lot 24)

Acquired from the above sale by A. Alfred Taubman

Vienna, Neue Galerie, Egon Schiele, 1954

Jane Kallir, Egon Schiele: The Complete Works, New York, 1990, no. D.829, illustrated p. 442

Jane Kallir, Egon Schiele: The Complete Works, New York, 1998, no. D.829, illustrated p. 442

Please contact the Impressionist and Modern Art Department at (212) 606-7360 for the condition report for this lot.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
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Executed in 1911, the present work is a beautifully balanced composition of a model wearing knee-length black stockings who is portrayed pressed up close to the boundaries of the composition and in a dream-like state. Erwin Mitsch writes of Schiele’s compositions from 1911: "There was now a new accent on weariness and melancholy, resignation and submission […]. The Pathos of revolt has faded into weariness and submission the cry of affliction is followed by an exhausted collapse. The body is forced into the narrow shape of the picture, the position of the head, which is strongly inclined to one side, seems enforced by the top edge of the canvas. The frame has become a prison from which there is no escape. The bared parts of the body are rendered as abstract zones, which traverse the picture diagonally […]" (E. Mitsch, Egon Schiele, London, 1993, p. 31).

Overwhelmingly erotic, this pose must have captivated Schiele when he rendered it at the age of 20. At this point in his life, highly sexualized images of women were common in his repertoire, and they are often depicted in a highly impersonal manner, their facial features often blurred or hidden. Unlike his more mature works, in which the artist was able to combine his interest in the psychology as well as convey an erotic charge in his works of 1911, his concern was primarily with the form of the human body and his own nascent sexuality, which he so obsessively explored.