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Calvary, 1912

Leopold Museum,
Vienna
Oil, gouache, pencil on canvas
81.7×80 cm

Artists

  • Egon Schiele

    (Tulln 1890–1918 Vienna)

Unfortunately not on display at the moment
Egon Schiele’s (1890–1918) move from Český Krumlov/Krumau to Neulengbach in the August of 1911 was also reflected in the emancipation of a motif that had hitherto played only a subordinate role in his oeuvre: the landscape. “The Buchberg hill near Neulengbach looks over the most splendid landscape of fields I know, what one can see of houses from the tower in Krumau, one can see of fields there,” Schiele reports to his fellow artist and future brother-in-law Anton Peschka (1885–1940). In Calvary, the reproduction of figurative elements for the sake of emphasizing atmospheric and spiritual qualities in nature reaches an early culmination. The application of paint in glazes removes any corporeality from the area of the meadow and directs the gaze towards the horizon, where the three crosses of the calvary join a procession of bare, windswept trees and posts leading to a Station of the Cross on the right edge of the painting. Above it, dark bands of clouds stretch across the sky, glowing in the last light of the sunset and dramatizing the calvary and hence also nature as a place of religious reverence.

VG, 2022

Object data

Artist/author
  • Egon Schiele
Title
Calvary
Date
1912
Art movement
Expressionism
Category
Painting
Material​/technique
Oil, gouache, pencil on canvas
Dimensions
81.7×80 cm
Signature
Signed and dated lower right using pencil: EGON SCHIELE 1912
Credit line
Leopold Museum, Vienna, Inv. 480
Inventory access
Contributed to the Leopold Museum-Privatstiftung in 1994
Selection of Reference works
  • Rudolf Leopold: Egon Schiele. Gemälde, Aquarelle, Zeichnungen, hrsg. von Elisabeth Leopold, München 2020.
  • Tobias Natter: Egon Schiele, Sämtliche Gemälde 1909-1918, Köln 2017.
  • Der Lyriker Egon Schiele. Briefe und Gedichte 1910–1912 aus der Sammlung Leopold, hrsg. von Rudolf Leopold/Elisabeth Leopold, München 2008.
  • Egon Schiele Landschaften, hrsg. von Rudolf Leopold, München u.a. 2004 (Ausst. Kat. Leopold Museum, Wien, 17.09.2004-31.01.2005).
  • Jane Kallir: Egon Schiele - The complete works. Expanded edition including a biography and a catalogue raisonné, New York 1998.
  • Otto Kallir: Egon Schiele. Oeuvre Catalogue of the Paintings, New York 1966.
  • Otto Nirenstein: Egon Schiele. Persönlichkeit und Werk, Berlin 1930.
Catalogue raisonne
  • J. Kallir 1990/1998: P240
  • Leopold 1972/2020: 215
  • O. Kallir 1966: 162
  • O. Kallir (Nirenstein) 1930: 121
  • Natter 2017: 121
Keywords
landscape representationdeathtransiencemountainstreemalefactors on crossesGolgothathe cross: symbol of Christ

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Provenance

Provenance research
Leopold Museum i

Heinrich Benesch, Wien (bis 1947);
Otto Benesch, Wien (1947-1964);
Eva Benesch, Wien (1964-1983); (1)
Jenö Eisenberger, Wien (1983);
Dr. Rudolf Leopold, Wien (1983-1994); (2)
Leopold Museum-Privatstiftung, Wien (1994).

  1. Sonja Niederacher, Egon Schiele. Kalvarienberg, Dossier vom 30.04.2011
  2. Archiv des Leopold Museums, Bestätigung der Giese & Schweiger Kunsthandel Ges.m.b.H. vom 19.02.2002 sowie Quittung vom 30.09.1983

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landscape representationdeathtransiencemountainstreemalefactors on crossesGolgothathe cross: symbol of Christ