Egon Schiele:
Mother with Two Children III (Mutter mit zwei Kindern III), 1917
Oil on canvas
150 × 158.7 cm
©Belvedere, Vienna
(Kallir P303)

Jane Kallir identifies Mother with Two Children III as the final work in Schiele’s small group of paintings on this theme, each version adjusting the structure of the mother‑and‑child arrangement. The connection to Gustav Klimt’s Mother with Children is noted in the scholarship as a compositional reference rather than a direct borrowing. Marie Schiele posed for the mother. For the children, Schiele again used his nephew, Anton Peschka Jr., who appears in both this painting and its immediate predecessor. Alessandra Comini records that when the boy was not available, Schiele relied on a Japanese doll for supplementary studies. Technical examination shows that the left child’s eyes were originally painted open, indicating a revision made after the initial layout.

The painting’s development was not linear. Work began in 1915. According to Tobias Natter, the version shown in Berlin in early 1916 was an earlier state, not the final form. Schiele wrote in a letter that the painting was not yet finished at the time of the Berlin exhibition. The long orange blankets visible today belong to the later Vienna stage, added after the canvas returned from Berlin. The Berlin price of 6,000 kronen reflects wartime inflation rather than exceptional valuation. After its return to Vienna, Schiele continued to adjust the composition. The 1917 signature marks the point at which he considered the painting complete.

The painting once belonged to Karl Grünwald and later entered the collection of Jenny Steiner, who acquired it in 1922. Steiner lost possession of the work in 1938 following the Anschluss. A formal agreement concerning the painting was reached with Steiner in 1950, after her emigration to the United States. In 1951 the Belvedere purchased the work, as documented by Natter.

Research presented in the Leopold Museum’s 2025 exhibition Changing Times: Egon Schiele’s Last Years: 1914–1918 adds another factual nuance to the discussion around the identity of the children in Schiele’s mother‑and‑child works. Much of the established literature refers only to Gerti Schiele’s son, Anton Peschka Jr., but Gerti (Gertrude) had an earlier daughter, also named Gerti, who was raised by the parents of her father, Anton Peschka. This detail broadens the context in which Schiele’s repeated use of child models can be understood.