Description
Egon Schiele – Self-Portrait with Physalis, 1912
The hand-painted Egon Schiele painting Self-Portrait with Physalis is an oil reproduction of a work from 1912. The original is held by the Leopold Museum in Vienna.
A panel wider than it is tall
The panel is landscape, which is unusual for a self-portrait. The head is pushed into the right half and the left is left open for the plant — an arrangement that reads as a double portrait of a man and a plant.
The painter’s look
Schiele shows himself at half length, head slightly tilted, his gaze going obliquely past the viewer. The face is built from small strokes of blue, green and red over a pale ground; the dark, almost black jacket is laid on in long vertical sweeps and fills the whole lower right.
The lantern fruits
From the left a stem of physalis (Physalis alkekengi) rises and bends, carrying orange bladder-like fruits and dry yellow leaves. Those fruits gave the work its name, and their orange is the only strong colour on an otherwise restrained surface.
A pair with Wally
The work was made as a companion to the portrait of Wally Neuzil of the same year and the same format. The two were conceived to hang side by side, so that the sitters’ glances meet.
Technique and format of the original
The original is not canvas: it is painted in oil on wood, measuring 32.2 × 39.8 cm (inv. LM 454), and hangs today in the Leopold Museum in Vienna.
Provenance
The painting was owned by Heinrich Mayer in Vienna (before 1918 to 1938), then by Josef and Richard Parzer in Vienna (1938–1956) and by Rudolf Leopold (1956–1994); it is now at 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.
