Egon Schiele

Wilhelm Schab, New York
Serge Sabarsky, New York
Acquired from the above by the present owner in 1975

New York, Sabarsky Gallery, Expressionists, 1972-73, no. 74, illustrated in the catalogue

Jane Kallir, Egon Schiele: The Complete Works, London, 1990, no. 2210, illustrated p. 608
Jane Kallir, Egon Schiele: Drawings and Watercolours, London, 2006, n.n., illustrated in colour p. 463
Jane Kallir, Egon Schiele's Women, London, 2012, no. 223, illustrated in colour p. 233

Executed on cream wove paper, not laid down, attached to the mount at all four corners and floating in the overmount. There is an artist's pinhole to the centre of the upper edge and the extreme left edge is uneven in places and the sheet is slightly timestained. There is some creasing to the upper and lower edges, the most prominent being a diagonal crease across the lower right corner, and all of which is away from the image. There is some light discolouration to the upper corners and centre of the extreme left edge, possibly due to previous mounting. There appear to be two very small repaired tears to the extreme right edge. Overall this work is in good condition.
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The sitter of this beautiful and elegant portrait is Lilly Steiner (1884–1961), born in Vienna as Lilly Hofmann, who was herself an artist. Steiner was a member of the Hagenbund, but only received recognition as an artist after her move to Paris in 1927.  She married the manufacturer Hugo Steiner who commissioned architect Adolf Loos to design their Viennese house, Villa Steiner, which remains an important and significant example of modernist architecture, to this day. 

The present work was executed in 1918. By then Schiele was recognised as a master draughtsman and had reached a maturity which was particularly evident in his renderings of female models. No longer an adolescent focusing only on their sexuality, he was now able to render his female sitters with a sense of spirit and individuality, beautifully realised 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' (Jane Kallir, Egon Schiele: Drawings and Watercolours, London, 2003, p. 442).

Lilly Steiner's striking facial features certainly fascinated the young Schiele, who executed another four portraits of her, one of which is held today in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. In the present work, Schiele beautifully combined his skills as a draughtsman, visible in the depiction of the woman's face with his skills as a colourist of great nuance and confidence.