Description
Egon Schiele – The Hermits, 1912
The hand-painted Egon Schiele painting The Hermits is an oil reproduction of a work from 1912. The original is held by the Leopold Museum in Vienna.
Two figures, one mass
Two male figures in long black robes stand on the almost square canvas. The robes touch and merge into a single dark plane from which only the heads and a few hands emerge — it is impossible to say where one figure ends and the other begins.
The front face and the one behind
The forward head is Schiele’s: narrow, pale, eyes open, lips pressed. Behind it leans an older face, head bowed, gaze closed. The artist described the work as two bodies carrying the same fate.
A rose at their feet
At the lower left a single red rose grows on a thin bare stem. It is the only clear colour in the lower half and the only sign of life in a scene otherwise made of black and dust.
A background that is not empty
The ground is an ochre-brown plane scored with thin light lines that read as cracks. Along the bottom edge runs a band of dark leaf-like forms. There is no space: the figures float in the plane.
Technique and format of the original
The original is painted in oil on canvas, in the large square format 181 × 181 cm (inv. LM 466), and hangs today in the Leopold Museum in Vienna.
Provenance
From Schiele’s estate (1918) the painting passed to Arthur Stemmer (Vienna/London, 1918–1953) and then to Rudolf Leopold (1953–1994); 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.
