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portrAt des malers anton peschka (portrait of the painter anton peschka) signed and dated 1909 oil, silver and gold bronze paint on canvas 110 by 100 cm., 43 1/4 by 39 3/8 in. Painted in 1909. Provenance Carl Reininghaus (acquired from the artist) Josef Siller, Vienna (the owner of the Hotel Sacher, Vienna from 1934) Dr. Ludwig Freiherr von Berg, Thorl Sale: Sotheby's, London, 31st March 1987, lot 25 Acquired at the above sale by the present owner Exhibited Vienna, Gebaude der Secession, Internationale Kunstschau, 1909, (probably) no. 17 Vienna, Hagenbund, Egon Schiele, Gedachtnisausstellung zum 10. Todestag des Kunstlers, 1928, no. 3a Vienna, Historisches Museum der Stadt Wien, Egon Schiele: Fruhe Reife, ewige Kindheit, 1990, no. 7, illustrated in colour in the catalogue Literature Otto Nierenstein, Egon Schiele, Personlichkeit und Werk, 1930, no. 50 Otto Kallir, Egon Schiele, OEuvre-Katalog der Gemalde, Vienna, 1966, p. 181, no. 86, illustrated Christian M. Nebehay, Gustav Klimt, Dokumentation, Vienna, 1969, p. 419, fig. 533, illustrated Rudolf Leopold, Egon Schiele: Paintings, Watercolours, Drawings, London, 1973, p. 543, no. 131, illustrated Alessandra Comini, Egon Schiele's Portraits, Berkeley & Los Angeles, 1974, pl. 10, illustrated Peter Vergo, Art in Vienna 1898-1918, London, 1975, fig. 183, illustrated Christian M. Nebehay, ''Kokoschka und Schiele: Versuch der Deutung einer einseitigen, lebenslangen Abneigung'', in Morgen, August 1979, p. 169 Gianfranco Malafarina, L'Opera di Schiele, Milan, 1982, no. 128, illustrated Jane Kallir, Viennese Design and the Wiener Werkstatte, New York, 1986, fig. 193, illustrated Christian M. Nebehay, Egon Schiele: Von der Skizze zum Bild, Vienna & Munich, 1989, fig. 149, illustrated Jane Kallir, Egon Schiele: The Complete Works, London, 1998, p. 58, pl. 7, illustrated in colour; Painted in 1909, the present monumental portrait is one of the artist's greatest early masterpieces. The painter Anton Peschka, five years Schiele's senior, was his classmate at the Akademie der Bildenden Kunste (Academy of Fine Arts) in Vienna, and later married the artist's sister, Gertrude in 1914. The jewel-like surface, the geometrical patterning and the broad expanses of colour in the present work all demonstrate the influence of Schiele's mentor, Gustav Klimt, at this stage in his career. Jane Kallir writes of the present work: 'Schiele moved rather more slowly towards Expressionism, his orientation shaped as much by Klimt's legacy as by contemporary developments. The three portraits that he exhibited at the 1909 "Kunstschau'' clearly show the older master's influence. Two of them - depicting the artist's Neukunstgruppe colleagues Anton Peschka [the present work] and Hans Massmann [Fig. 4] - mimicked the triangular silhouettes in Klimt's paintings of Adele Bloch and Fritza Riedler [Fig. 2], (both shown at the previous "Kunstschau''), though Schiele exaggerated the formula by positioning the figures in profile and integrating them more forcefully with the geometric backgrounds' (J. Kallir, op. cit., 1990, p. 56). The sumptuous silvers, golds and mauves, picked out with reds in the furniture and flowers, epitomise the lavishness and opulence of the Jugendstil decorative tradition. Here, Schiele focuses his great talent for figuration on Peschka's bearded face and powerful hands; the rest of the sitter's form is subsumed into the overriding tendency, still dominant in Schiele's painting during this period, towards an emphasis on surface and pattern. p. 288, no. 150, illustrated Alessandra Comini discusses the emergent sensitivity to the 'psychological' evident in Portrat des Malers Anton Peschka: 'The alacrity of Schiele's response to the unmasking approach to portraiture is evident in his further portraits of his future brother-in-law, Anton Peschka, one of the original members of the Neukunstgruppe. The large oil portrait of Peschka which Schiele had exhibited in the 1909 Kunstschau had been very much within the Klimt format. Comparison of a charcoal sketch of Peschka [Fig. 3] done towards the end of 1909 with a contemporary photograph points up Schiele's strong instinct for psychological dramatization. The designations "mild'' for the photograph and "sinister'' for the portrait sketch are perhaps too sweeping, but the conversion of the amiable, easy-going painter into a person whose physiognomy denotes strength and powers of concentration (by means of the heightened forehead, arched brows, firm jaw, powerful nose, and recessed eye) does represent a remarkable pictorial transformation which however still preserves an almost mirrorlike fidelity' (A. Comini, op. cit., p. 46). Portrat des Malers Anton Peschka, with its sensitivity to its sitter's character, its jewel-like surface and its wonderful brilliance of vision, is one of Schiele's most compelling and seductive early portraits. Combining the influences of Jugendstil patterning and Wiener Werkstatte opulence with the artist's unique feeling for figuration, this painting is an enduring and remarkable testament to Schiele's pre-eminence as a painter of portraits in the first decades of the twentieth century.