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Mother and Child, 1912

Leopold Museum,
Vienna
Oil on wood
36.5×29.2 cm

Artists

  • Egon Schiele

    (Tulln 1890–1918 Vienna)

Unfortunately not on display at the moment
From 1910, Egon Schiele (1890–1918) repeatedly explored the mother-and-child motif, developing some of his most expressive and enigmatic pictorial creations, such as Dead Mother I, 1910, Blind Mother, 1914, or Mother with Two Children II, 1915. The staging of the small-scale panel painting Mother and Child, dating from 1912, resembles that of an icon. The two heads are fused into a single entity by a continuous white collar and depicted in front of an unspecific dark background rendered in agitated, pastose brushstrokes. While the mother is turned towards the child with a lowered gaze and a reserved expression, the child is looking out of the picture with bright, wide-open eyes. The hands protruding from the darkness below continue these opposed dynamics on a gestural level. As in the panel painting Dead Mother I, created two years before, Schiele again portrays a dissonant mother-child relationship, characterized by opposed emotions and the notion of being trapped.

VG, 2022

Object data

Artist/author
  • Egon Schiele
Title
Mother and Child
Date
1912
Art movement
Expressionism
Category
Painting
Material​/technique
Oil on wood
Dimensions
36.5×29.2 cm
Signature
Signed and dated upper half right: SCHIELE 1912
Credit line
Leopold Museum, Vienna, Inv. 652
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.
  • Körper, Gesicht, Seele. Frauenbilder vom 16. bis ins 21. Jahrhundert, hrsg. von Elisabeth Leopold, Wien 2006 (Ausst.-Kat. Leopold Museum, Wien, 09.06.2006-02.10.2006).
  • 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: P225
  • Leopold 1972/2020: 207
  • Natter 2017: 106
  • O. Kallir 1966: 155
  • O. Kallir (Nirenstein) 1930: 111
Keywords
woman/girlchildmother and baby/young childfingers spread out

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Provenance

Provenance research
Leopold Museum i

Emil Toepfer, Wien (o.D.);
Neue Galerie, Wien (o.D.);
Paul Clairmont, Zürich (vor 1930-1942); (1)
Christoph Clairmont, Zürich (1942-1958);
Dr. Rudolf Leopold, Wien (1958-1994); (2)
Leopold Museum-Privatstiftung, Wien (1994).

  1. Otto Nirenstein, Egon Schiele. Persönlichkeit und Werk, Wien 1930, Nr. 111; Archiv des Leopold Museums, Auskunft von Jane Kallir (Galerie St. Etienne, New York) vom 31.05.2002
  2. Michael Wladika, Egon Schiele. Mutter und Kind II, 1912, Dossier vom 30.04.2011; Archiv des Leopold Museums, Kaufvertrag vom 18.11.1958 sowie Briefwechsel zwischen Dr. Rudolf Leopold und Emy Clairmont vom September und November 1958

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woman/girlchildmother and baby/young childfingers spread out