Egon Schiele:
Woman in Underwear and Stockings (Frau in Unterwäsche und Strümpfen), Valerie Neuzil, 1913
Gouache, wash, brush and ink, and pencil on paper
47.9 × 30.8 cm
Auctioned at Christie’s in 2008 for GBP 860,500
(Kallir d1293)

This striking drawing belongs to Schiele’s extraordinarily productive year of 1913, when his depictions of Valerie Neuzil reached a new level of psychological clarity and emotional depth. Here, Wally stands upright, her body slightly angled, her gaze turned away in a gesture that is both self‑contained and quietly teasing. Schiele’s taut, elastic contour line captures the tension of the pose with remarkable economy, while the combination of gouache, wash, ink, and pencil gives the figure a sculptural immediacy. The frayed trousers and boldly colored orange boots — both unusual in Schiele’s portrayals of Wally — lend the sheet a distinctive, almost theatrical presence.

Woman in Underwear and Stockings (Frau in Unterwäsche und Strümpfen) is a warm, intimate, and subtly erotic portrait of the woman who was Schiele’s closest companion during the difficult years between 1911 and 1915. The vivid accents of orange — in her hair, lips, bow, and boots — give the sheet a striking immediacy, marking it as one of the finest works from the long series of portraits Schiele made of her. These were years of hardship, uncertainty, and artistic breakthrough, and Wally was at the center of all of it.

Comparatively little is known about Valerie Neuzil. Thought to be the daughter of a schoolteacher from Tattendorf in Lower Austria, she first appears in the historical record as a model in Gustav Klimt’s studio. It was likely there that she met the young Schiele, soon becoming not only his model but his partner, confidante, and emotional anchor. Through the difficult years of 1911 and 1912 — marked by poverty, instability, and public hostility — Wally remained steadfast. She followed Schiele when he was forced to leave his mother’s native town of Krumau, where their unconventional life together had provoked local outrage. She stood by him again during the ordeal in Neulengbach, when he was arrested and briefly imprisoned on charges of obscenity and “corrupting minors.”

More than a companion, Wally was a stabilizing force and a profound influence on Schiele’s art. Their deepening relationship brought a new sensuality into his work — one that softened the raw eroticism of his early drawings and introduced a more mature, emotionally layered understanding of sexuality and human presence. In many of her portraits, Wally meets the viewer with a questioning, sidelong, or — as in this sheet — a furtive, almost coquettish glance. It is a look that speaks of familiarity, trust, and a private world shared between artist and sitter, a world entirely absent from the confrontational eroticism of Schiele’s earlier watercolors.

By 1913, Schiele’s approach to the figure had shifted decisively. His line had become fully mature — elastic, tense, and psychologically charged — and his use of color more deliberate and symbolic. The brilliant orange that appears so vividly here, prompted by Wally’s red hair, became a recurring motif in his work of this period. Schiele even painted himself several times wearing a blazing orange shirt or cape, often in the guise of a monk, as if the color had taken on a personal, almost spiritual resonance.

In works like Woman in Underwear and Stockings, Wally’s presence feels less like that of a passive model and more like that of a collaborator — someone who shaped the emotional and artistic atmosphere in which Schiele’s most searching works were created. Her stance, her expression, and the charged simplicity of the composition all speak to a partnership that was as creative as it was intimate. This sheet stands among the most compelling of Schiele’s 1913 portrayals of Wally, offering a rare and revealing glimpse into the world they shared at the height of their collaboration.