Description
Egon Schiele – Mother with two Children III
Egon Schiele – Mother with Two Children III, 1915–1917
This hand-painted Egon Schiele painting, Mother with Two Children III, is an oil reproduction of a work the artist painted between 1915 and 1917.
The subject
The painting speaks of the fears, burdens and exhaustion of motherhood; art historians read it as Schiele working through experiences tied to his father’s early death. The artist’s infant nephew, Anton Peschka Jr., is reported to have modelled for both children.
The original’s medium and format
The original is oil on canvas, measuring 150 × 159.8 cm (inv. 4473).
A Jewish collection lost under the Nazis
The painting comes from the collection of the Jewish art dealer Karl Grünwald, who in 1930 sold it to Jenny Steiner, a Jewish collector and silk-factory owner in Vienna. After the annexation of Austria in 1938 Steiner was persecuted and her collection seized; this work was condemned as “degenerate art” and held in Vienna in the custody of the Reich Chamber of Fine Arts. In November 1950 it was restituted to Jenny Steiner; unable to obtain an export licence, she — then living in New York — sold it to the Belvedere in 1951 for 20,000 Schilling.
The restitution claim and the Board’s decision
The heirs of Jenny Steiner later claimed the painting back. The Austrian Art Restitution Advisory Board (Kunstrückgabebeirat) declined to return it — in 2000 and again on 8 October 2010 — finding the 1951 sale a legitimate post-war transaction. The painting remains in the Belvedere collection.
Our hand-painted oil reproduction
Our reproduction is hand-painted in oil on canvas and painted in the size you choose.
