Description
Egon Schiele – Self-Portrait with Lowered Head, 1912
The hand-painted Egon Schiele painting Self-Portrait with Lowered Head is an oil reproduction of a work from 1912. The original is held by the Leopold Museum in Vienna.
The head bowed forward
Schiele paints himself with his head bowed steeply, seen slightly from above. The hair is set in hard, spiked locks and the face is built from planes of olive, grey and rust. The eyes turn upward from under the brows and the mouth is set — the look is not submissive but calculatedly watchful.
The hand across the chest
The right hand lies flat across the chest, fingers spread into a straight fan. The gesture recurs in Schiele’s self-portraits of these years and reads more as a shield than as a touch.
The white robe
A pale, almost white robe slips from both shoulders and opens the throat and upper chest. It is laid on in broad, dry strokes that leave the wood visible in places, giving the whole panel an unfinished look.
The year 1912
The work was made in the year Schiele spent twenty-four days in detention following the charges at Neulengbach. The lowered head and closed posture are often read in that light, though the painter left no explanation of his own.
Technique and format of the original
The original is not canvas: it is painted in oil on wood, measuring 42.2 × 33.7 cm (inv. LM 462), and hangs today in the Leopold Museum 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.
