The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of December 18, 2025

Portrait of a Child (Anton Peschka, Jr.)

1916

Egon Schiele

(Austrian, 1890–1918)
Austria
Gouache, watercolor, and graphite
Sheet: 49.9 x 32.2 cm (19 5/8 x 12 11/16 in.)
Severance and Greta Millikin Collection 1964.285
Catalogue raisonné: Kallir 1814
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.
  • by 1917-before 1959
    Lederer family, Vienna, sold to Walter Feilchenfeldt, Zurich
    ?-1959
    (Walter Feilchenfeldt, Zurich, sold to Severance and Greta Millikin, Cleveland, OH)
    1959-1964
    Severance and Greta Millikin, Cleveland, OH, given to the Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
    1964-
    The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
    Provenance Footnotes
    1 According to inscription on verso.
  • Schiele, Egon. Zeichnungen Egon Schiele: 12 Blatter in Originalgrosse. Vienna: Richard Lanyi, 1917. Reproduced: plate 10
    Catalogue of the Severance and Greta Millikin Collection. Exh. Cat. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1990. Mentioned: p. 8-9; Reproduced: p. 42, no. 236
    Kallir, Jane. Egon Schiele: The Complete Works. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1998. Mentioned and reproduced: p. 560, no. 1814
    DeGrazia, Diane and Carter E. Foster. Master Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art in association with Rizzoli International Publications, New York, 2000. Mentioned: p. 7, p. 236-37, p. 297; Reproduced: p. 237
  • Graphic Discontent: German Expressionism on Paper. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (January 14-May 27, 2018).
    Master Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (August 27-October 17, 2000); The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, NY (May 23-August 19, 2001); Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Houston, TX (October 14, 2001-January 6, 2002).
    Directions in Drawing: 1750-1988. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (April 2-August 4, 1991).
    The Severance and Greta Millikin Collection. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (July 5-September 2, 1990).
    Possibly exhibited.
    Secession im Glaspalast. Kunstausstellungsgebäude, Munich (1917).
  • {{cite web|title=Portrait of a Child (Anton Peschka, Jr.)|url=false|author=Egon Schiele|year=1916|access-date=18 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1964.285