Egon Schiele – House and Wall in Hilly Landscape

House and Wall in Hilly Landscape is a 1911 painting by Egon Schiele: pale grey-ochre buildings and a long wall at the foot of dark red-brown hills, laid on in thick, restless strokes. The original, 52 x 43.7 cm, is in the Leopold Museum in Vienna. We paint it by hand in oils on canvas at the size you choose, and before dispatch we send you a photograph of the finished work for approval.

House and Wall in Hilly Landscape – Egon Schiele

What does the painting show?

Almost the whole upper part is taken up by hills in deep red-browns and near-black, worked in heavy, restless strokes with flashes of orange-red on the left and a few pale grey patches at the top right. Below them stand pale grey-ochre buildings: at the left a tall block with dark window openings near the top, in front of it a long wall running to the right, and at the bottom right a lower building with a dark arched doorway. A thin light line rises from the wall into the hills, and a narrow white strip runs down the left edge. In the upper left corner, in white, the Austrian painter set his monogram ES and the year 1911. The paint is thick throughout, and in places the weave of the canvas shows through.

Why do people love it?

Because it is so direct. There are no people, no sky and hardly any detail, only light buildings pressed against a dark, heavy mass, and that contrast carries the whole composition. The houses look solid and built, the hills almost alive, and the thick brushwork makes the surface something you want to look at up close. It is also an unusual Schiele: better known for figures, here he turns a plain house and a wall into a compact, brooding composition of light and dark.

Where does it sit among Schiele’s works?

Among the townscapes and house views that run through his work from 1910 onwards. The same interest in walls, windows and blocks of houses returns in Krumau on the Vltava (The Small Town IV), in Houses on the River (The Old Town) and in House Wall on the River, where house fronts fill almost the whole canvas. The full selection is in the Egon Schiele gallery, and there is more on his life in our article about Egon Schiele.

How is our hand-painted version made?

Each copy is a hand-painted painting made for your order, not a print: a painter builds it up in oils, stroke by stroke. Like the original, our copy is oil on canvas. The hardest part here is the dark upper half: the red-browns and near-blacks have to stay separate and warm rather than merging into one muddy tone, and the brushwork has to keep its thickness. The pale buildings, the white strip on the left and the white monogram then have to sit against that dark ground just as they do in the original. When the work is finished we photograph it and send you the photograph for approval, and only then does it ship. We have not yet photographed this work in our workshop; photographs will be added to this page once we have them.

Which size for which wall?

The original is 52 cm high and 43.7 cm wide, and even our smallest size, 50 x 60 cm, is a little larger. That size and 55 x 66 cm suit a hallway, a desk or a chest of drawers, where the dark hills read as a strong accent. Above a sofa or a sideboard in a living room, 100 x 120 cm or 110 x 130 cm give the buildings real presence; on a large wall or in a tall room, 130 x 155 cm. A canvas painting this dark likes a light wall and good light, so the red-browns do not sink into shadow. Hang it with the centre at eye level, about 145–150 cm from the floor.

Custom size, stretcher bar and frame

If none of the five sizes suits your wall, we paint the work to your own measurement. If you choose YES under the Podokvir (stretcher bar) option, the canvas comes stretched on a wooden stretcher bar, ready to hang. Our 3D application is for choosing a frame only. The frame is chosen separately and need not be part of the order.

Delivery and guarantee

We paint to order and deliver to sixteen countries in the European Union, among them Slovenia, Croatia, Austria, Italy, Hungary, Germany and France; the United Kingdom and Ireland are not currently among them. The work arrives protectively packed and, if you chose YES under Podokvir, stretched on a stretcher bar. Before dispatch we send you a photograph of the finished work to approve. Production time depends on the size and on the studio’s workload. Every order is covered by our Returns and Refund Policy.

Frequently asked questions

Which place does it show?

The titles name only a house, a wall and hilly ground, and the museum record does not identify a particular town or building. The painting is best read as a composition of buildings against hills rather than as a portrait of a known place.

When did Schiele paint it?

In 1911, when he was twenty or twenty-one. He marked it in the upper left corner, in white, with his monogram ES and the year.

Where is the original?

In the Leopold Museum in Vienna, under inventory number 476. It is an oil painting on canvas and measures 52 x 43.7 cm.

Does it have other titles?

Yes. Otto Nirenstein’s catalogue of 1930 listed it as a study for a townscape, and in 1995 Rudolf Leopold published it as “Mauer und Haus vor hügeligem Gelände mit Zaun”, adding a fence to the wall and the house. The museum today uses House and Wall in Hilly Landscape.

Who owned it before the Leopold Museum?

The museum’s provenance names, in order, Alfred Spitzer, Hanna Spitzer and Edith Neumann née Spitzer, Fritz Wotruba, Lucy Wotruba-Vorel, Wolfgang Duchon and the Vienna art trade. Rudolf Leopold held it from 1986, and in 1994 it passed to the Leopold Museum Private Foundation.

Does it work as a gift?

Yes; if you are unsure which size to choose, there is a gift voucher.