Egon Schiele – Interior

Interior is a 1907 work by Egon Schiele, a view through an open double door into a room with a tall window, two red curtains and a gleaming parquet floor. The original is in the Belvedere in Vienna under inventory number 6621; it is painted in oils on cardboard and measures 39.1 x 31.2 cm, and per the museum record it is currently not on display. We make it as a hand-painted oil painting on linen, in thirteen sizes or to your own measurement, and we send you a photograph of the finished work for approval before it ships.

Interior – Egon Schiele

What does the work show?

A view out of one room into another. In the foreground a double door stands open to both sides, its grey-green panels framing the scene like a proscenium. At the centre is a tall window with white-grey glazing bars; through the panes come daylight and a few yellowish-green patches, most likely foliage. To either side of it hang heavy red curtains, gathered into folds and edged with tassels. At the right stands a tall dark piece of furniture with its door open and red fabric inside, two pale finials on top. The floor is dark reddish-brown parquet, polished enough to throw the whole scene back in vertical smears.

Whose apartment is this?

The museum record answers directly. The work is listed under the title Interieur with the subtitle “view into the apartment of Leopold and Marie Czihaczek”, and per the same record the reverse carries an inscription in the painter’s own hand: “Schlafzimmer und Durchblick / zum / Salon ‘Circusgasse 47’” — bedroom and view through to the salon, at Circusgasse 47. Who Leopold and Marie Czihaczek were, and what relation they stood in to the painter, the record does not say, and neither do we. It says enough for this page all the same: the scene is not an invented space but two particular rooms at a particular address, and the painter named them himself.

Where is the signature?

Lower right, on the brown floor. The record gives it as signed and dated lower right, “SCHIELE. / 07” — the surname with a full stop and a two-digit year, no forename. It also gives the inscription on the reverse, the one about the bedroom and the salon. So the work is marked front and back, differently each time: authorship on the front, the name of the room on the back.

Why is it painted on cardboard and not on canvas?

What the support is, the record states: oil on cardboard. The same holds for other small works of these years, made quickly and on whatever was to hand. Later it was otherwise — the large portraits held by the same house are oil on canvas, among them the Portrait of Dr Franz Martin Haberditzl of 1917 and the Portrait of Dr Hugo Koller of 1918. Our reproduction of this work is painted in oils on linen; cardboard is a fact about the original, linen is our choice of support, and we do not let the two blur together.

How large is the original, and how large will ours be?

Here it pays to be completely plain. The original measures 39.1 x 31.2 cm — smaller than a sheet of A3 paper, and smaller than the smallest size we offer. Our smallest is 50 x 65 cm, which means every version we paint is larger than the original, including the smallest one. If you want the work at something close to its true size, none of the thirteen steps will do it; the way to get there is a made-to-measure size. Enlargement is not in itself a fault, and with this subject it works well, because the brushstrokes are broad and legible. But it is only fair to say in advance that what you are looking at is an enlargement and not a same-size copy.

Why is this early work interesting?

Because it was made before the style we know the painter by had formed. The record dates the work to 1907 and gives the painter’s year of birth as 1890; from those two figures it follows that he was sixteen or seventeen when he made it. The hard contours and the distorted bodies are not here yet. What is already here is what stays to the end: an interest in the edge, in the opening, in what can be seen through. The work is a good way into the output rather than a summary of it.

Where does it come from and where is it now?

The Belvedere publishes a short chain of owners and we give it as the museum publishes it: Gertrude Peschka-Schiele, Vienna; purchased in 1982 from Anton Peschka, Vienna. The museum also names a contact for provenance research. What relation those owners stood in to the painter the record does not say, and we do not add it. The exhibition list is short and we give it in full: a show in 1990, “Die Tafelrunde” in 2006, and the large Schiele exhibition of 2018–2019. The work is today in the Belvedere under inventory number 6621 and, per the record, currently not on display; the museum’s whole Schiele holding is listed on the Belvedere’s Egon Schiele page.

Where does this work sit among Schiele’s works?

Among the early, small works on cardboard, immediately beside Houses in Winter (View from the Studio) of 1907/1908, likewise oil on cardboard in the same collection. Where the painter went afterwards is shown by the Portrait of the Artist’s Wife, Edith Schiele of 1918. The full selection is in the Egon Schiele gallery, and there is more on his life in our article about Egon Schiele. Schiele was a younger contemporary of Gustav Klimt, and the Vienna Secession was the milieu he came out of; Viennese Expressionism is the movement he helped define, and Austrian art of the period is still read through those two names. This work is not yet an expressionist painting — that comes later — and it is exactly for that reason that it is worth seeing how he painted before he was any of it.

How is our hand-painted version made?

Every canvas is painted by an artist in oils, stroke by stroke. It is not a machine impression: what comes off the brush is a hand-painted copy made specifically for your order. On this subject two places are the hardest. The first is the reflection in the parquet: the vertical smears have to stay smears and must not turn into a mirror, or the scene loses its weight. The second is the red curtain, the only strong colour in the work — too strong and it takes over everything, too weak and the whole thing goes grey. When the work is finished we photograph it and send you the photograph for approval, and only then does it ship. For this family we hold no studio photographs — the work has not been photographed in our workshop yet, and nothing has been removed; when it is next painted it will be photographed and the images added to this page. As a canvas reproduction it arrives stretched on a wooden bar and ready to hang.

Which size suits which wall?

Short answer: for this subject choose the smaller steps, 70 x 90 cm or 80 x 100 cm, since it is a quiet interior scene that does not need a whole wall to itself. Above a sofa 110 x 140 cm works. A portrait format behaves differently from a horizontal one — it does not need length beneath it but height above, so it works well beside a door, between windows, or alone on a narrow wall. Our largest format is 160 x 205 cm and the smallest is 50 x 65 cm. A canvas painting at that scale needs distance: the parquet and the curtain only settle together from a few metres.

How do I order a made-to-measure size, stretcher bar and frame?

If none of the thirteen sizes suits your wall — or if you want to come closer to the size of the original — we paint the work to your own measurement. The canvas comes stretched on a wooden bar; our 3D application is for choosing a frame only, not for showing the work on your own wall. You choose the frame separately and it is not necessarily part of the order.

How is it delivered and what do we guarantee?

We paint to order and deliver to sixteen countries in the European Union, among them Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands and Poland; the United Kingdom and Ireland are not currently among them. Before dispatch we send you a photograph of the finished work for approval; if you are not satisfied with the result we correct it or paint it again. Because each painting is made individually, the production time varies with the size and with the studio’s current workload.

Frequently asked questions

Where is the original kept?

In the Belvedere in Vienna, inventory number 6621; the museum record notes it is currently not on display.

What is the original painted on?

On cardboard. The museum record gives oil on cardboard, not on canvas.

How large is the original?

39.1 x 31.2 cm — smaller than the smallest size we offer.

Can I have it at the size of the original?

Not among the thirteen steps; the smallest is 50 x 65 cm. For something close to the original, order a made-to-measure size.

Is this a print?

No. Every canvas is painted by hand in oils by an artist.

Is anything painted on the back?

Nothing painted; per the museum record the reverse carries a handwritten note about the bedroom and the view through to the salon.

How is the work signed?

Lower right, in the form “SCHIELE. / 07”.

How old is the work?

It dates from 1907, that is, from the painter’s earliest years.

How does it arrive?

Stretched on a wooden bar and protectively packed; the frame is optional.

Is the original for sale?

It is not for sale; it belongs to the public Belvedere collection and is not on the market.

Does it work as a gift?

It does; if you are unsure which size to choose there is a gift voucher.

• Subject: a view through an open door to a tall window with red curtains, the parquet throwing the scene back.
• Original: 1907, oil on cardboard, 39.1 x 31.2 cm, signed lower right, Belvedere Vienna, inv. no. 6621.
• Ours: hand-painted in oils on linen, 13 sizes or a made-to-measure size.
• Worth knowing: the original is smaller than our smallest size, so every version we paint is an enlargement.