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Lot Essay
1907 was a groundbreaking year for the seventeen year old Schiele. While still a student at the Vienna Academy he had already outgrown the place, its doctrines and its teachers and was increasingly leaning towards the more radical and experimental art of the Viennese Secession - in particular that of its leader Gustav Klimt. It was in 1907 that Schiele first got to know Klimt - the artist 'through' whom, as he later said, he was to reach his own unique style - by introducing himself to him in what was probably the Museum Café near the Secession building in the heart of Vienna. On a later visit to Klimt's studio, soon after this first meeting, where he showed the elder artist his own work and asked if he had any talent, Schiele received from Klimt the now famous reply, 'Talent? Yes, too much talent'.
Hafen von Triest is one of Schiele's finest oil paintings from this important year. It is also perhaps the very first of his works to suggest the future direction that his art would take. Depicting boats resting in the harbour of Trieste, it was painted on one of the many sojourns Schiele made to the Adriatic port in 1907. Often accompanied by his beloved sister Gerti, Schiele seemingly chose to visit Trieste because it had been the location for his parent's honeymoon, and there, away from the restrictions he felt both at home and at the Academy, he could be free to independently pursue his own vision.
At the Academy Schiele was still not allowed to paint in oils, least of all in a manner that, as in this work, with its flamboyant emphasis on the abstract pattern of lines reflecting in the water's surface, began to imitate the Jugendstil of the Secession. Schiele's master at the Academy, Professor Christian Griepenkerl, was particularly fierce in his opposition to Secessionist art and attempted to forbid his students from even visiting their exhibitions. Fearful of any signs of wayward originality or off-beat talent in his students, Professor Griepenkerl found in Schiele a troublesome adversary even reputedly on one occasion scolding his student with the words: 'the devil has shat you into my class... For God's sake don't tell anyone that I was your teacher!' (cited in F. Whitford, Egon Schiele, London, 1981, p. 35). In the light of this, an 'illicit' oil painting such as Hafen von Triest represented for Schiele both an escape from the strictures of his Academy training and, in its Secessionist leanings, a clear rebuttal of everything Professor Griepenkerl stood for.
Indeed Schiele often recalled these early visits to Trieste as being among the happiest times of his life. When later imprisoned for a brief period in Neuglenbach in 1912 he comforted himself by recalling these days in Trieste and by drawing the boats in its harbour from his memory. 'I dreamt of Trieste', he wrote in his prison journal, 'of the sea, of open space. Longing, oh longing! For comfort I painted myself a ship, colourful and big-bellied, like those that rock back and forth on the Adriatic. In it longing and fantasy can sail over the sea, far out to distant islands where jewel-like birds glide and sing among incredible trees. Oh sea?' (Egon Schiele, 'Prison Diary, 1 May 1912').
In Hafen von Triest Schiele not only demonstrates his accomplished mastery of formal technique but in the Expressionistic styling of lines reflected in the water - made using the unorthodox technique of scoring the wet paint with a pencil or the wrong end of the brush - something daring and experimental. For the first time in an oil painting Schiele's precocious genius as a draughtsman is clearly in evidence in the assured ease with which these distinct and soon to be familiar fluid angular lines masterfully describe the watery reflection of the masts and rigging.
One of the best-known and finest of Schiele's early works, Hafen von Triest was formerly in the collection of Dr Heinrich Rieger - a discerning collector and friend of the artist. Very little is known about Dr Rieger save that he had a dental practice at 124 Mariahilferstrasse where both Schiele and his wife Edith were patients and that he was in the habit of accepting works of art in exchange for treatment. Through this practice and by seemingly spending all of his available income on the work of young Viennese artists, Rieger managed to assemble one of the finest collections of avant-garde Austrian art in the city. His fate, like so many of the Austrian collectors of the time, was to be tragic. His collection was confiscated by the Nazis in 1938 and he later died in Theresienstadt concentration camp in 1942.
Hafen von Triest is one of Schiele's finest oil paintings from this important year. It is also perhaps the very first of his works to suggest the future direction that his art would take. Depicting boats resting in the harbour of Trieste, it was painted on one of the many sojourns Schiele made to the Adriatic port in 1907. Often accompanied by his beloved sister Gerti, Schiele seemingly chose to visit Trieste because it had been the location for his parent's honeymoon, and there, away from the restrictions he felt both at home and at the Academy, he could be free to independently pursue his own vision.
At the Academy Schiele was still not allowed to paint in oils, least of all in a manner that, as in this work, with its flamboyant emphasis on the abstract pattern of lines reflecting in the water's surface, began to imitate the Jugendstil of the Secession. Schiele's master at the Academy, Professor Christian Griepenkerl, was particularly fierce in his opposition to Secessionist art and attempted to forbid his students from even visiting their exhibitions. Fearful of any signs of wayward originality or off-beat talent in his students, Professor Griepenkerl found in Schiele a troublesome adversary even reputedly on one occasion scolding his student with the words: 'the devil has shat you into my class... For God's sake don't tell anyone that I was your teacher!' (cited in F. Whitford, Egon Schiele, London, 1981, p. 35). In the light of this, an 'illicit' oil painting such as Hafen von Triest represented for Schiele both an escape from the strictures of his Academy training and, in its Secessionist leanings, a clear rebuttal of everything Professor Griepenkerl stood for.
Indeed Schiele often recalled these early visits to Trieste as being among the happiest times of his life. When later imprisoned for a brief period in Neuglenbach in 1912 he comforted himself by recalling these days in Trieste and by drawing the boats in its harbour from his memory. 'I dreamt of Trieste', he wrote in his prison journal, 'of the sea, of open space. Longing, oh longing! For comfort I painted myself a ship, colourful and big-bellied, like those that rock back and forth on the Adriatic. In it longing and fantasy can sail over the sea, far out to distant islands where jewel-like birds glide and sing among incredible trees. Oh sea?' (Egon Schiele, 'Prison Diary, 1 May 1912').
In Hafen von Triest Schiele not only demonstrates his accomplished mastery of formal technique but in the Expressionistic styling of lines reflected in the water - made using the unorthodox technique of scoring the wet paint with a pencil or the wrong end of the brush - something daring and experimental. For the first time in an oil painting Schiele's precocious genius as a draughtsman is clearly in evidence in the assured ease with which these distinct and soon to be familiar fluid angular lines masterfully describe the watery reflection of the masts and rigging.
One of the best-known and finest of Schiele's early works, Hafen von Triest was formerly in the collection of Dr Heinrich Rieger - a discerning collector and friend of the artist. Very little is known about Dr Rieger save that he had a dental practice at 124 Mariahilferstrasse where both Schiele and his wife Edith were patients and that he was in the habit of accepting works of art in exchange for treatment. Through this practice and by seemingly spending all of his available income on the work of young Viennese artists, Rieger managed to assemble one of the finest collections of avant-garde Austrian art in the city. His fate, like so many of the Austrian collectors of the time, was to be tragic. His collection was confiscated by the Nazis in 1938 and he later died in Theresienstadt concentration camp in 1942.