Egon Schiele

Acquired by the family of the present owner in the 1950s

Jane Kallir, Egon Schiele: The Complete Works, London, 1998, no. 2341, illustrated p. 622

Weiblicher Akt mit gespreizten Beinen belongs to a small group of drawings dating from 1918 that appear to show a similar model in a variety of poses. Alessandra Comini has suggested the subject of one of the drawings from this group (Kallir, no.  2343, now in the Tel Aviv Museum of Art) is the artist’s sister-in-law Adele Harms (fig. 1). Whether or not this is the case, the great appeal of the present work lies in the remarkable character with which Schiele imbues his subject. In most of the artist’s later depictions of nude or half-clothed models the face is partially, or even completely, obscured. His women look into the distance, or turning away glance demurely downwards, or are simply hidden by the arrangement of their bodies; in striking contrast in the present composition the model gazes frankly and provocatively out at the viewer. 

As Jane Kallir wrote: ‘Schiele’s women are, by 1917-18, thoroughly modern. Like most modern women, they own their sexuality. The nude and semi-nude models take pride in their seductive bodies and are empowered by their allure... Nor are they projections of the artist’s ego. They combine the mystery and the specificity of complete, independent human beings’ (J. Kallir, Egon Schiele’s Women, Munich, 2012, p. 266). The model of the present work embodies this completely; she is seductive but not brazen, the quick intelligence in her eyes and the confidence of her posture suggest a self-possession which is not often a feature of Schiele’s earlier nudes.

The model’s figure is outlined in unbroken, emphatic lines of black crayon. In the later drawings Schiele achieved a fluidity that matched the confidence of his subjects. Kallir observes of his late work: ‘Always a speedy worker, Schiele had finally found the perfect line. In 1917 and 1918, he was usually able to capture his subject with a single, virtually unbroken sweep of his crayon [...]. In his works on paper, he became more and more focused on the qualities of drawing as such, and therefore relatively few of his 1918 studies are coloured. Instead, he was increasingly interested in sculpting volume, embellishing interior details with curious little loops [...] in these drawings Schiele achieved an unprecedented degree of accuracy’ (J. Kallir, Egon Schiele. Drawings and Watercolours, London, 2003, pp. 441-442).