Description
Egon Schiele – The embrace – Lovers II – Die Umarmung (Liebespaar II)
Egon Schiele – The Embrace (Lovers II / Die Umarmung), 1917
This hand-painted reproduction of Egon Schiele’s The Embrace – Lovers II (originally Die Umarmung / Liebespaar II) recreates one of the most emotionally charged paintings of Viennese Expressionism. The original was painted in 1917 and hangs today in the Upper Belvedere, Vienna.
The scene and composition
Two lovers embrace in an abstract space, sprawled on a crumpled sheet; their upper bodies cling together while their lower bodies appear to drift apart. Schiele avoids explicit poses and piercing gazes, using the bodies as vehicles of inner states — desire and separation anxiety, tenderness and despair.
Painted in 1917 — the late years
The work belongs to the artist’s final, most mature period. Egon Schiele was born in 1890 in Tulln and died in 1918 in Vienna; he painted The Embrace just a year before his death.
The original’s medium and format
The museum record lists the original as oil on canvas, measuring 100 × 170 cm and unsigned — a large, horizontal composition.
Where it hangs, and provenance
The painting is held in the Upper Belvedere, Vienna, under inventory number 4438. It comes from the Vienna collection of Heinrich Rieger and was acquired in 1950 by Robert Rieger of New York.
Exhibition history
The Embrace has been shown at the Belvedere since 1954, including the Schiele retrospectives of 1968, 1990 and 2018.
Our hand-painted oil reproduction
Our reproduction is hand-painted in oil on canvas, like the original. We paint it in the size you choose, so the motif can be tailored to your wall.
