Egon Schiele:
Portrait of the Boy Erich Lederer (Knabenbildnis Erich Lederer), 1913
Pencil, watercolor, gouache on primed Japanese paper
47.9 × 32 cm
©Albertina
(Kallir d1221)

In December 1912, a fifteen-year-old boy used a cash gift from his grandmother to hire a controversial twenty-two-year-old artist. The winter visit to a Hungarian estate yielded a series of raw, non-academic studies that bypassed traditional Viennese portrait rules. Decades later, the same model became the sole surviving heir to a ruined dynasty. Post-war state extortion forced him to surrender family masterpieces at cut-rate prices. He did this to secure export permits for the remaining fragments of a heritage salvaged from Nazi plunder.

Shaping the Poses

Egon Schiele executed this work during a Christmas visit to Győr, Hungary, around the turn of the year 1912 into 1913. The drawing served as a preparatory study for a life-sized oil painting now housed in the Kunstmuseum Basel. Out of approximately twenty sketches produced during this stay, this specific sheet remains the closest composition to the final painted variant. Schiele positions the fifteen-year-old subject in a formal contrapposto stance. The hands are loosely clasped at the waist. This created a compromise between a natural posture and the rigid requirements of upper-class representative portraiture.

Breaking from Klimt

The material execution relies on sharp pencil work combined with precise layers of watercolor and opaque gouache on a primed paper base. Schiele deviates from realistic anatomy. He introduced a calculated asymmetry in the placement of the ears. The eyes open to slightly varying degrees. The pale flesh tones receive structural definition through a vibrant, saturated red collar that frames the face. This stylistic choice marks a formal departure from the decorative ornament favored by the artist’s mentor, Gustav Klimt. Klimt had originally introduced Schiele to the wealthy industrialist family.

The Cash and the Crisis

The creation of this portrait followed a direct financial agreement between the young model and the artist. Erich Lederer used a gift of nearly one thousand kronen from his grandmother to commission Schiele. While Erich established himself as a prominent collector, the 1938 annexation of Austria shattered his family. His father, August Lederer, passed away in 1936. His mother, Serena Lederer, was stripped of her entire collection by the Gestapo. She died in exile in Budapest in 1943. In a desperate act of survival in occupied Vienna, Erich’s sister Elisabeth obtained a legal status change. She claimed she was the illegitimate daughter of Gustav Klimt rather than August Lederer. Serena supported this fabrication via a signed affidavit from exile.

This paper shield saved Elisabeth from immediate deportation. However, she succumbed to a severe illness in Vienna in October 1944. She survived the initial persecution, though she died before the war ended. A massive portion of the seized Lederer collection was incinerated at Schloss Immendorf by retreating German forces in 1945. As the eldest son and legal heir to the depleted estate, Erich faced the heavy task of reclaiming the surviving remnants of the collection after 1945. The Austrian Federal Monuments Authority blocked their transfer out of the country. To secure export permits for his remaining family heritage, the heir was pressured into selling major holdings to the Austrian state at significantly depressed, cut-rate prices. The sales included Klimt’s Beethoven Frieze. These coercive post-war state acquisition tactics permanently shifted the legacy of private Secessionist collections from private family pride into compromised state property.