Nude Pregnant Woman, Reclining, 1910

Egon Schiele’s (1890–1918) oeuvre also comprises works which were not created in the artist’s studio, but in the gynecological ward of a hospital. Before the artist left Vienna and went to Krumau in March 1910, he created a series of depictions of newborn children, e.g. Lying Newborn, and at least sixteen drawings of pregnant women at the 2nd Women’s Clinic. Along with the present work, another one of the latter drawings forms part of the collection of the Leopold Museum: Pregnant Woman with Green Stomach, Seated. At first glance, the artist seems to omit the hospital setting in which the works were created by positioning the subjects in an empty image space in all these drawings. The clinical context is inscribed in the bodies, however; the uncovered bellies and partially spread legs testify to the setting of a gynecological exam and to a medical perspective. The drawings were made possible by Schiele’s friendship with the gynecologist Erwin von Graff (1878–1952), who granted the artist access to the institution in a symptomatic manifestation of the interdisciplinary exchange that was common in Vienna around 1900. It also testifies the increased interest in the body that was shared by arts and medicine at the time.

VG, 2022