Egon Schiele:
Standing Female Nude (Stehender Akt), 1913
Watercolor and pencil on paper
47.9 x 30.9 cm
Auctioned at Sotheby’s in 2019 for 475,000 USD
(Kallir d1238a)

If you look closely at Egon Schiele’s drawings, you can often see exactly how he worked in his studio. In 1913, his style changed. He started drawing bodies with much sharper, harder angles. This watercolor sketch shows some great details that tell us a lot about his daily routine.

Spikes and Paper Edges

Schiele put his name and the year 1913 right at the top, in the middle of the page. The paper itself tells a small story. The left side still has a rough, untrimmed edge. This means he probably just grabbed a sheet straight from a fresh stack without cutting it straight first.

There is also a tiny pinhole in the bottom right corner. Schiele used to pin his wet drawings onto wooden boards or directly to his studio wall. This kept the paper flat while he brushed on the wet watercolor. He always drew the sharp pencil lines first and then filled them in with thin layers of color.

Why Leave the Face Blank?

This drawing is definitely not a standard portrait. Schiele chose to leave the face completely empty. Because there are no eyes, nose, or mouth to look at, your attention goes straight to how the model stands.

The woman crosses her left arm tightly over her chest. By doing this, she blocks the front of her body. It turns a normal posing stance into a defensive barrier. The contrast between the dark pencil lines and the light watercolor inside makes the figure stand out against the empty background.

Moving Between Collections

This piece traveled a lot before it ended up at Sotheby’s. It was sold in New York back in 1990, went to a gallery in Essen, and later spent time at the well-known Galerie St. Etienne in New York.

The empty face makes you wonder about what happened that day in the studio. Did Schiele leave the face blank on purpose to focus purely on the shape of the body? Or did the model simply stop posing before he could finish the head? This mix of a finished body and an empty face shows how spontaneous his daily studio work really was.