Egon Schiele:
Portrait of a soldier (Porträt eines Soldaten), 1916
Gouache, watercolor, and black crayon on paper
46 x 30 cm
Dorotheum, Vienna, auction November 17, 2026, estimate EUR 160.000 – EUR 250.000
(Kallir d1841a)

The upcoming autumn auction at Dorotheum in Vienna will introduce a work that few Schiele scholars have seen. Portrait of a soldier (Porträt eines Soldaten), executed in 1916, has emerged from a private collection and will be offered publicly for the first time. Until recently, the drawing was known only through a small archival photograph. The reappearance of the original sheet finally reveals its color, scale and remarkable condition, providing a new opportunity to study Schiele’s wartime work.

Schiele at the Mühling Camp

By 1916, Schiele’s life had changed dramatically. Newly married to Edith Harms and serving in the Austro-Hungarian army, he found himself stationed at the prisoner-of-war camp in Mühling near Wieselburg. Military service disrupted his usual routines, yet it did not end his artistic activity. Given a workspace within the camp, he continued to draw whenever circumstances allowed.

During this period, Schiele portrayed officers (see: d1850), administrative staff and prisoners of war, creating a remarkable visual record of camp life. This newly discovered drawing belongs to this important group of wartime portraits. Although little is currently known about the sitter, the portrait demonstrates how closely Schiele observed the people around him during his military service.

A New Wartime Style

The drawing reflects the more restrained and structured approach that characterizes much of Schiele’s work from the war years. More striking than the uniform is the treatment of the head itself. Schiele reduces the figure almost entirely to a face, allowing the body to dissolve into the untouched paper. Suspended within a vast expanse of empty space, the sitter feels both intensely present and strangely isolated. The empty background draws the viewer’s attention to every line, color accent and facial feature.

Firm black crayon lines define the face and the sparse remains of the uniform, while transparent washes of color animate the skin. The handling of the paint already points toward the scratching and dry-brush effects that appear in a number of Schiele’s late works. Small touches of green, red and ochre move across the face, emphasizing bone structure, age and individuality. The palette remains deliberately limited, reinforcing the sober and direct character of the portrait.

An Important Rediscovery

The reappearance of this sheet adds a new chapter to Schiele’s wartime production. Because the drawing was absent from Jane Kallir’s printed catalogue raisonné, its rediscovery led to the assignment of a new number in the digital addendum: D1841a.

Until its inclusion in the Dorotheum catalogue, the composition was known only through a small black-and-white reference photograph preserved in a private archive. For decades, neither its true scale nor its color could be properly appreciated. Now, for the first time since its creation in 1916, the drawing can be seen as Schiele intended.

For visitors researching his wartime portraiture, further details on his graphic materials can be explored in the section dedicated to drawings by Schiele. The Dorotheum presentation allows the drawing to be seen and studied in its original form after decades of obscurity.