Egon Schiele:
Portrait of August Lederer (Bildnis August Lederer), 1918
Charcoal pencil on yellowish wove paper
46.5 × 29.5 cm
Auctioned at Karl & Faber in 2021 for €190,500
(Kallir D2455a)

August Lederer (1857-1936) sits quietly in this late drawing, his features shaped with the soft, searching line Schiele used in the final months of his life. The charcoal settles gently into the warm tone of the paper, giving the portrait a calm, steady presence. Schiele does not push the expression; he lets the face appear slowly, with small shifts of pressure that bring out the weight of the brow, the slight tension around the mouth, and the thoughtful tilt of the head. The drawing feels direct and unforced, as if Schiele were meeting an old friend with quiet respect.

By 1918 Schiele’s style had become clearer and more economical, and here he relies on the strength of the contour and the softness of the shading to carry the likeness. Nothing is overstated. The sheet has the ease of a late work, made by an artist who no longer needed to prove anything, only to observe with honesty and care. The yellowish wove paper adds a gentle warmth, softening the contrast and giving the drawing a sense of closeness, as though the sitter were lit by a quiet afternoon light.

The Lederer family had been central to Schiele’s world for years. August and Serena Lederer were among Klimt’s most important patrons, and their support extended naturally to the young Schiele. Their son Erich became one of Schiele’s most frequent sitters and later one of the key guardians of his legacy. This portrait of August, made in the final year of Schiele’s life, carries the weight of that long relationship. It is not a formal likeness, but a gentle, attentive study of a man whose family had stood beside him from the beginning.

It was most likely through his long friendship with Erich Lederer that Schiele came to make this small group of portrait sketches of August in 1918, and this sheet belongs to that circle. By then he had set aside the sharp wax crayons of earlier years and turned to charcoal, a medium that allowed him a softer, more flexible line. With it he could move easily between quick, confident strokes and quieter shading, building a portrait that feels both direct and unforced. On this pale yellow paper he needs only a few clear lines to suggest the collar and the fall of the jacket; the body is barely marked at all. The face, by contrast, is shaped with more care — the eyes, the eyebrows, the slight tightening around the mouth — small touches that give the drawing its quiet presence. Even the tie, drawn with a few broad strokes, has a gentle weight to it. Whether these drawings were made in preparation for a formal portrait is not known, but they feel more like moments of close looking, made at a time when Schiele’s style had reached its full clarity. The year was also marked by loss, as Schiele died of the Spanish flu in October 1918, only twenty‑eight years old. The later history of the Lederer family adds another quiet layer to the sheet. After August’s death in 1936, the family’s business and their remarkable art collection were seized and “Aryanized” by the National Socialists. Serena Lederer fled to Budapest and spent her remaining years trying, without success, to recover what had been taken. Much of the collection stored at Immendorf Castle was destroyed in a fire in May 1945, including Schiele’s painting Mödling I. Only a small number of works survived, among them the pieces that had already passed to Erich Lederer. This drawing belongs to that group: a portrait he inherited from his father and managed to save when he fled.

Seen today, the sheet feels like a quiet moment of recognition — a simple, thoughtful drawing that holds both the clarity of Schiele’s late style and the warmth of a long, steady connection.