House on a River

Being the son of a stationmaster, Egon Schiele was entitled to free train travel within the Habsburg Empire. This work represents Krumau, a small Bohemian village on the banks of the river Vltava (now Cesky´ Krumlov, Czech Republic) and was the hometown of his mother. By 1915, his relationship with long time mistress and model nick-named Wally had ended and Schiele had married the more socially acceptable Edith Harms. The artist's paintings from this period began taking an aura of decay, loneliness, despair, and impending disaster. Depicted houses are old, desolated and present the pessimistic view of old age and eventually death.