Description
Egon Schiele – Portrait of Dr Franz Martin Haberditzl, 1917
The hand-painted Egon Schiele painting Portrait of Dr Franz Martin Haberditzl is an oil reproduction of a work from 1917. The original is held by the Belvedere in Vienna.
Who is shown
Franz Martin Haberditzl was an art historian and director of the Moderne Galerie in Vienna, the forerunner of the Belvedere. It was he who bought a Schiele for the collection in 1918 — so the portrait shows the man who put the painter into a museum.
The seated figure
Haberditzl sits on a plain dark wooden chair, turned slightly aside, his gaze passing the viewer. He wears a grey-brown suit with an ochre tie and white collar; the face is built from narrow, dry strokes.
A sheet of sunflowers
In his hands he holds a white sheet on which a bunch of sunflowers with green leaves is drawn. That sheet is the brightest plane in the painting and leads the eye straight to the centre of the composition.
A blue board and the dark
At the lower right a blue board pushes into the scene — most likely a portfolio or drawing board. The background is almost black, with no wall and no floor, so that figure and chair float in the dark.
Technique and format of the original
The original is painted in oil on canvas, measuring 140 × 110 cm (inv. 9638), and hangs today in the Belvedere in Vienna.
Provenance
The painting was owned by Franz Martin Haberditzl in Vienna, then from 1944 to 1976 by Margarete Haberditzl in Vienna, from 1976 to 2003 in private hands in Vienna and Paris, and was acquired from that private collection in 2003; it is today in the Belvedere in Vienna.
Our hand-painted oil reproduction
Our painter works the reproduction by hand in oil on canvas, in the size you choose. Before delivery you receive a photograph of the painting for approval.
