Egon Schiele:
Kneeling Female in Orange-Red Dress (1910)
Black chalk, gouache on paper
44.6 × 31 cm
©Leopold Museum
(Kallir d476)

Note at the Leopold Museum:
“The Kneeling Female in Orange-Red Dress – Schiele’s sister Gertrude – appears virtually wedged into the picture plane owing to the position of the legs and feet. Towering above them is the body of the depicted which is assembled from individual almost crystalline color planes and, except for the head and one hand, covered entirely by fabric. The coiled body looks extremely tense – an impression that is emphasized by the pencil line, added for no motivic reason, arching from the hem of the skirt up to the hand. The glowing orange-red color appears compact despite the inclusions of blue and green, and invests the rendering with additional tension. But neither the color nor the composition are apt to rival the expressiveness of the gaze from the one eye with which the depicted fixes the artist and thus also us the beholders.”