Fragment of a Sheet with a Constellation of Two Heads, undated

This narrow fragment of a page, perhaps from a former, disassembled sketchbook, shows two isolated heads close together, their mouths slightly open and their eyes closed – perhaps capturing the moment just before a kiss? If we compare the reduced depiction with motifs from Egon Schiele’s (1890–1918) paintings, it comes closest to the two figures in Caress (Cardinal and Nun, created in 1912. In the painting, however, the nun is looking straight out of the depiction at the beholders, while the cardinal, too, feels observed, and is gazing upwards with wide-open eyes. The ardency of the two heads in the sketch is toned down in the painting through the aspect of being caught in the exchange of forbidden affection.

KJ, 2024