Portrait of a Child (Anton Peschka Jr.)

1916

Egon Schiele

(Austrian, 1890–1918)

Culture

Austria

Medium

Gouache, watercolor, and graphite

Support

Beige(1) wove paper, discolored to yellow-beige

Measurements

Sheet: 49.9 x 32.2 cm (19 5/8 x 12 11/16 in.)

Credit Line

Severance and Greta Millikin Collection 1964.285

Catalogue raisonné

Kallir 1814

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Location

Not on view

Did You Know?

The child seen in this drawing, Anton Peschka Jr., served as a model for several compositions by Egon Schiele.

Description

Egon Schiele depicted a small child, the son of a friend, in this drawing devoid of setting. The child teeters at an awkward angle, seemingly unsupported but for a multipatterned fabric wrap that occupies the artist’s primary interest. This contorted pose is typical of Schiele’s many drawings of people in which he explored the expressive capacity of the human form, often using the body to indicate their psychic state (see another drawing by Schiele nearby). He died in the Spanish influenza epidemic in 1918 at age 28, leaving a vast number of drawings.