Egon Schiele:
Portrait of Karl Grünwald, Half‑Figure with Clasped Hands (1917) Bildnis Karl Grünwald, Halbfigur mit verschränkten Händen Watercolor and black crayon
45.6 × 29.3 cm
Private collection
(Kallir d2070a)

Made during one of the most stable and quietly productive phases of Schiele’s wartime service, this portrait study of Karl Grünwald carries the calm concentration that marks so many of his 1917 sheets. Grünwald, born in 1878, belonged to Vienna’s educated Jewish middle class and served as a senior officer at the Military Supply Depot, where he played a decisive role in arranging Schiele’s transfer from Mühling at the beginning of the year. He was not merely a superior but a supporter, someone who recognised Schiele’s abilities and helped create the conditions in which they could continue to grow. Alessandra Comini, well known Schiele scholar, notes that he was among the instigators of the proposed Kunsthalle project, and the two men even travelled together to Tirol on army business in June, a sign of the trust and familiarity that had developed between them. Grünwald’s later fate casts a quiet shadow over this moment of collaboration: in 1942 he was deported and murdered at Maly Trostinec, near Minsk, one of the major extermination sites in the occupied territories.

This drawing belongs to the group of studies Schiele made in preparation for a more formal portrait, and it shows him working with a clarity and restraint characteristic of his late wartime style. Grünwald appears half‑length, his hands clasped in a gesture that feels both composed and slightly protective, as if he is holding his thoughts close. Schiele’s black crayon defines the structure of the figure with quiet authority, while the watercolor washes bring a soft, almost meditative luminosity to the skin. The face is shaped by gentle tonal shifts—warm ochres, faint greens, touches of rose—giving Grünwald a presence that is alert yet inward, a man accustomed to responsibility but not hardened by it.

The simplicity of the composition heightens this sense of interiority. Schiele leaves the background untouched, allowing the figure to emerge without distraction, the clasped hands becoming a subtle anchor for the entire sheet. The drawing has the feeling of a private moment observed with respect: Schiele looking at a man who had shaped his daily life, not with the sharp psychological tension of his earlier portraits but with a steadier, more humane attention. It is one of those works in which the wartime circumstances recede, replaced by the quiet understanding that can grow between two people who share the same confined world.