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Lot Essay
Following her marriage to the artist in 1915, Edith Schiele had demanded she alone pose for his nude drawings. Knowing her husband's past, she worried that he might dally with other models. However, by 1918 Schiele's work was so much in demand that the artist needed to employ multiple models, and for the first time he could easily afford them.
The model in the present drawing appears to be a very young woman, who is perhaps still in her teens. The artist may have been drawn to her youthfully narrow waist, which has become the focal point in the drawing; there is more exclusive interest here, as in earlier drawings, in her linear contours, while other drawings of the period often employ more extensive interior shading to create a naturalistic sense of volume (see lot 33). The sight of the tops of her stockings was a convention of traditional erotica that the artist, who well appreciated his collectors' tastes for such suggestive and risqué elements, frequently introduced into his drawings of nudes.
The model in the present drawing appears to be a very young woman, who is perhaps still in her teens. The artist may have been drawn to her youthfully narrow waist, which has become the focal point in the drawing; there is more exclusive interest here, as in earlier drawings, in her linear contours, while other drawings of the period often employ more extensive interior shading to create a naturalistic sense of volume (see lot 33). The sight of the tops of her stockings was a convention of traditional erotica that the artist, who well appreciated his collectors' tastes for such suggestive and risqué elements, frequently introduced into his drawings of nudes.