Egon Schiele – Portrait of Dr Franz Martin Haberditzl

Portrait of Dr Franz Martin Haberditzl is a 1917 work by Egon Schiele in which an art historian sits on a plain wooden chair holding a large white sheet of sunflowers open across his knees. The original is in the Belvedere in Vienna under inventory number 9638; the museum record notes 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.

Portrait of Dr Franz Martin Haberditzl – Egon Schiele

Who was Franz Martin Haberditzl?

The museum record says exactly this: the art historian Prof. Dr Franz Martin Haberditzl (1882–1944) was Director of the Österreichische Galerie from 1915 to 1938. That is the house we know today as the Belvedere — and it is the house that holds this painting. The sitter, in other words, ran the collection in which his own portrait now carries an inventory number. The record also gives his dates and places: born in Vienna in 1882, died in Vienna in 1944.

What does the work show?

A man in a loose greyish-beige suit, seated on a plain dark wooden chair with slats. The body is turned slightly to one side while the head is turned sharply the other way, so that the gaze leaves the painting past the viewer. A white collar and an ochre tie show beneath the jacket. The face is lean, the moustache short, the hair cropped close. The hands are large and bony, the fingers spread. The ground is dark brown-green and thickly worked, with no objects in it; the chair is the only thing that suggests a room at all. At the lower right a dark blue rectangular panel leans against his legs.

What is he holding?

A large white sheet, open across his knees and steadied with both hands. Sunflowers with green leaves are painted on it — yellow heads, some open, some bowed. The museum record does not describe the sheet and does not say what it is meant to be, so we do not guess either; we say only what can be seen. That the motif is a conspicuous one is confirmed by the museum’s own exhibition list: in 2018 the work was included in an exhibition called “Sag’s durch die Blume!”, that is, a show about flowers in art.

Where is the signature?

Lower right. The museum record gives it as signed and dated lower right, “EGON / SCHIELE / 1917”. On the painting it reads as an upright ochre rectangle with the letters set in a block, almost like a stamp. With Schiele that is not a given — for other works of these years the record gives the signature lower left, or none at all on the front — so with this portrait it is worth saying which side to look at.

Why is this portrait unusual?

Because the sitter is the man who ran the house. He was Director of the Österreichische Galerie from 1915 to 1938; the painting that shows him is today in that same collection. As an expressionist painting it is notably restrained about it: no pose, no dramatic gesture, just a seated man with a coloured sheet in his hands. What carries the tension is the relation between an almost empty dark ground and that one bright, flowering object in his lap.

What is the canvas like and what is the format?

A portrait format: the record gives 140 x 110 cm, a canvas about a quarter taller than it is wide. The record gives the original as painted in oils on canvas; our reproduction is painted in oils on linen, which is our choice of support and not a statement about the original. We do not let the two blur together: the table above gives canvas for the original’s technique and linen for ours.

Where does it come from and where is it now?

The Belvedere publishes the chain of owners, and this page already carries it: the provenance note follows directly below and is kept word for word, unaltered. So here we add only what the chain itself does not say. The museum names a contact for provenance research, and dates the purchase to 2003 — and it was in that same year that the museum’s exhibition list records a show called “Franz Martin Haberditzl. Portrait eines Direktors”. The purchase and the exhibition about the director thus fell in the same year, and the painting came into the house he had led almost sixty years after his death. The exhibition list also gives shows in 1968, 1990, 2011, 2018–2019, 2019 and 2022–2024. The work is today in the Belvedere under inventory number 9638 and, per the record, currently not on display; the museum’s whole Schiele holding is listed on the Belvedere’s Egon Schiele page.

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.

Where does this portrait sit among Schiele’s works?

Among the portraits of the last years, immediately beside the Portrait of Dr Hugo Koller of 1918, likewise a seated male portrait in the same collection. A year later came the Portrait of the Artist’s Wife, Edith Schiele, which the house bought in 1918 — the record for that work says the then Director required Schiele to repaint the dress in more muted hues, and this record says who was directing the house at the time; neither record names the other, so we set them side by side and draw no further conclusion. The earlier Portrait of Eduard Kosmack and Portrait of Herbert Reiner of 1910 show where the painter came from. 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.

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 suit: soft, without hard edges, built from greys, ochres and violets that must not run together into a single grey. The second is the sheet of sunflowers, the only bright and coloured area in the work — worked too hard it comes out looking like a sticker, worked too little it disappears. 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: above a sofa choose 110 x 140 cm or larger; for a smaller wall 70 x 90 cm is enough. On this subject 110 x 140 cm has a particular claim, because of all our sizes it comes closest to the size of the original, which measures 140 x 110 cm. An upright subject 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. Above a bed 120 x 150 cm is the usual choice. 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 face, the hands and the sheet of sunflowers 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, 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 9638; the museum record notes it is currently not on display.

Who is in the work?

The art historian Franz Martin Haberditzl (1882–1944), per the museum record Director of the Österreichische Galerie between 1915 and 1938.

What are those flowers?

Sunflowers, painted on a white sheet he holds across his knees. The museum record does not explain the sheet.

Is this a print?

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

How is the work signed?

Lower right, in the form “EGON / SCHIELE / 1917”.

How large is the original canvas?

140 x 110 cm, so upright.

Which of your sizes is closest to the original?

110 x 140 cm; of the thirteen it is the one that comes nearest the original’s measurements.

Can I have a size that is not on the list?

Yes, we paint the work to any measurement you specify.

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: Franz Martin Haberditzl seated on a wooden chair, a white sheet of sunflowers open across his knees.
• Original: 1917, oil on canvas, 140 x 110 cm, signed lower right, Belvedere Vienna, inv. no. 9638.
• Ours: hand-painted in oils on linen, 13 sizes or a made-to-measure size.
• Worth knowing: per the museum record the sitter directed the very house that holds the painting today.