Reclining Woman

Spread out on an undulating white sheet, a naked woman with long, flowing brown hair rests. Her harmonious but melancholic facial features are likely the most beautiful Schiele painted during his last years. The bent arms and legs formally opposing one another, the image is charged with sexual tension. It illustrates an aesthetic and balanced composition that typifies the painterly evolution Schiele went through at the end of his life. One can assume that in the first version of the painting, the woman’s sex was exposed. Schiele probably made adjustments to the painting in light of its display at the Secession in the spring of 1918; an exhibition where Schiele was to present a variety of paintings and drawings, and which led to his first major success in Vienna.