Egon Schiele (1890-1918)

Landschaft (Ruine Weitenegg) is a unique watercolour study for a now lost oil painting of the landscape and ruins of Castle Weitenegg that Schiele made while stationed in the area around Mühling in central Austria in the summer of 1916.

Along with two simple crayon sketches it is one of three studies of the castle ruins that Schiele made while on a Sunday outing to Weitenegg with his wife on the 2nd July and which evidently later served as the basis for one of the few oil paintings he was able to complete during this year dominated by his military service. A sketch with written notations for the oil painting he intended to make records his impressions of the scene and how he evidently envisaged the completed work. It reads 'Weitenegg Ruins - among the trees - sit rows of old people. -Brightly coloured children, pink, white, play in groups. - The ruins yellow-grey, partly scratched - and hacked like torsos - In the background - the white river with tugboats. - Far in the distance - green meadows and mountains striped sky. - The trees in the foreground are green as the meadows. - Rowing men' (Egon Schiele, quoted in Jane Kallir, Egon Schiele: The Complete Works, New York, 1994, p. 334).