Description
Procession is a 1911 painting by Egon Schiele: three figures woven into a landscape of angular patches in moss green, ochre and brown – a pale figure with closed eyes, a dark-haired woman in a long green garment and a head cut off by the top edge. The original, 100.1 x 100.1 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.
| Title: | Procession |
| Other titles: | Prozession |
| Painter: | Egon Schiele (1890–1918) |
| Year: | 1911, signed and dated three times lower right “EGON SCHIELE 1911” |
| Original size (width × height): | 100.1 cm x 100.1 cm |
| Original technique: | Oil on canvas |
| Style: | Expressionism |
| Location: | Leopold Museum, Vienna (inv. EX 24598) |
| Our reproduction: | hand-painted oil on canvas, 14 sizes from 50 x 50 cm to 170 x 170 cm, or a made-to-measure size |
Procession – Egon Schiele
What does the painting show?
The whole canvas is broken into angular patches of moss green, olive, ochre, brown and dusky purple, like a landscape of rocks or fields, and the figures are built from the same patches. On the right stands a woman with long black hair and a straight fringe, a white mask-like face and red lips, a pale flower at her breast and a small one in her hair; her dark green garment widens into a long triangle, and her bare feet show at the bottom. To her left a pale head with closed eyes sinks sideways, above a large patch of glowing orange. At the top, a third head is cut off by the upper edge. Near the feet, lower right, the Austrian painter wrote his name and the year 1911 three times.
Why do people love it?
Because it keeps its secret. The faces are few and small, yet they hold the eye: the calm, closed eyes on the left, the wide-open stare on the right. The colours are earthy and deep, lit by a single warm orange, and the faceted surface makes the whole canvas feel like stained glass or a mountain slope. People return to it because it can be read in more than one way and never settles on a single answer.
Where does it sit among Schiele’s works?
It belongs to the large symbolic figure compositions of the years around 1911, in which figures merge with their surroundings and stand for more than themselves. The same serious, allegorical mood runs through The Hermits, Levitation (The Blind II) and Self-Seers II (Death and Man). 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, and like the original our copy is oil on canvas. The difficulty here is the patchwork: dozens of greens, ochres and browns sit side by side, and each needs its own tone and its own dark contour, or the figures dissolve into the ground. The pale faces and the orange patch have to glow against it just as they do in the original, and the three small signatures stay in their place near the feet. 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 measures 100.1 x 100.1 cm, so our 100 x 100 cm is practically the original size. For a study or a bedroom, 50 x 50 cm or 60 x 60 cm; above a sofa or a sideboard in the living room, 80 x 80 cm to 110 x 110 cm; in a stairwell or on a large wall, 140 x 140 cm or more, up to 170 x 170 cm. A canvas painting this dark and earthy likes a light wall and good light, so its greens 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 fourteen sizes suits your wall, we paint the work to your own measurement. If you choose “YES” under the Stretcher 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 Stretcher, 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
Who are the three figures?
The figures are not named on the canvas. The Leopold Museum offers two readings: the three stages of life, or Schiele’s own family, with his father, who died early, at the top, his mother with closed eyes below him, and Schiele himself beside her, standing on the three signatures.
When did Schiele paint it?
In 1911, when he was twenty or twenty-one. He signed and dated it three times at the lower right: EGON SCHIELE 1911.
Where is the original?
In the Leopold Museum in Vienna, which holds it on permanent loan from a private collection, under the number EX 24598. It is an oil painting on canvas of 100.1 x 100.1 cm.
Was it exhibited in Schiele’s lifetime?
Yes. From 1912 it was shown regularly at international exhibitions, together with his now lost painting Jesuits. Only the jury of the Vienna Secession turned both works down for its spring exhibition in 1913.
Who has owned it?
The museum record names its owners in order: Oskar Reichel, Ferdinand Eckhard, Ferdinand Eckhard junior, Serge Sabarsky, Vally Sabarsky, the Vally Sabarsky Trust, the Serge and Wally Sabarsky Foundation and Ernst Ploil. That is the list as the Leopold Museum publishes it.
Does it work as a gift?
Yes; if you are unsure which size to choose, there is a gift voucher.
