The present sheet shows four outlined compositional drafts for planned paintings. In the center of the sheet, we see a scene with various figures which includes several standing women, one of them viewed from the back. Above and below them, there are a further three sketches, each featuring two squatting figures which, either through the rendering of breasts or the clutching of an infant, can all be identified as women. Egon Schiele (1890–1918) created a total of three paintings showing a mother with two children, one of which is housed today by the Leopold Museum:
Mother with Two Children II. The depiction of a squatting mother only appears in the 1918 oil painting
The Family (Squatting Couple) (Belvedere, Vienna, Inv.-No. 4277; Kallir P326). In this rendering, the child was integrated into the composition lying between the mother’s legs. The inventory of Egon Schiele’s estate, kept today at the Vienna Municipal and Provincial Archives, mentions “two squatting male nudes” and “two squatting female nudes” among his works. The latter,
Squatting Women, like its counterpart, remained unfinished.
KJ, 2024
