Reproduction of the Painting Krumau Crescent of Houses I (The Small City V), 1915, undated

Krumau Crescent of Houses I (The Small City V), dating from 1915, which now forms part of the collection of the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, is the first version of a cycle of three oil paintings by Egon Schiele (1890–1918) that show the birthplace of his mother Marie (1962–1935). They are all based on a 1914 drawing that depicts the town in the form of a crescent of houses. Work by work, the artist’s “cycle” further isolates the dynamic curvature of the houses along the characteristic bend in the Vlatava; in this first version, however, it is still incorporated into the surrounding city view. Nevertheless, the work displays some initial deviations from a realistic depiction, noticeable in particular in the row of front yards with clotheslines to the left, following and framing the crescent of houses. In a postcard to the Austrian writer and art critic Arthur Roessler (1877–1955), Schiele writes that he has “prepared” one of the paintings of the city of Krumau for the 1915 World’s Fair in San Francisco, in which he eventually did not participate.

AKe, 2023