EGON SCHIELE | PROFILANSICHT EINES STEHENDEN AKTES (OHNE KOPF) (STANDING NUDE IN PROFILE (WITHOUT HEAD))

Estate of the artist

Melanie Schiele Schuster, Vienna (the artist's sister)

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

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.