NEW YORK – Christie’s will offer two important Egon Schiele works on paper during its 20^th Century Evening Sale, 16 May 2024. Both works date from 1911 and are masterfully executed in gouache, watercolor, and pencil on paper. Stehender Akt mit Draperietuch (Standing Nude With Drapery), carries an estimate of $1.2 million to $1.8 million; Schwarzes Mädchen (Black Girl or Girl in Black) is estimated at $700,000 to $1 million. These two exceptional watercolors were part of the collection numbering in the hundreds of works that Fritz Grünbaum – said to be the inspiration for Joel Gray’s character in the Broadway musical Cabaret – assembled in Vienna in the first decades of the last century. The collection was lost when the Nazis invaded Austria in the late 1930s, and both Mr. Grünbaum and his wife were sent to concentration camps where they perished. Christie’s has sold various Schiele works on paper from the Grünbaum Collection, including six piece in November of 2023. For more information about Fritz Grünbaum’s life, art, and heroism in the face of fascism, please visit Christie’s website.

Chairman Christie’s Americas, Marc Porter, said: “Christie’s takes great pride and satisfaction to be part of this ongoing effort to return the Grünbaum collection to its rightful heirs. Our goal is to celebrate and add to Fritz Grünbaum’s legacy, as we continue to celebrate and add to the development of the practice of Restitution.”

The Co-Head of the 20^th Century Evening Sale, Imogen Kerr, said: “Each dating from the seminal year of 1911, these two works, exemplify a breakthrough in Schiele’s career when he asserted his artistic individuality, furthering his ingenious re-articulation of the human form with great nuance and complexity, and effectively reinventing the genre for the 20^th Century. A quintessential example of Schiele’s finest work, ‘Stehender Akt mit Draperietuch’ exudes rawness and sensuality; empowerment and vulnerability; isolation and desire; projected through the timeless and monumental figure of a standing woman. Her ethereal form is articulated almost entirely by insinuation – activated by the cascading fabric atop her body and hair on her head, articulated in luxuriant swathes of gouache, her features contained within a few carefully placed lines – yet her presence remains electric, assertive and powerful. In ‘Schwarzes Mädchen,’ Schiele’s distinctive hand masterfully harnesses form once again through his erudite use of line, delicate strokes from his brush, and even fingerprints, perfectly embodying his subject.”

Restitution Services at Christie’s

Christie’s has the largest and most experienced Restitution team of any international auction house, underscoring our responsibility to this field. Located in New York, London, Berlin, Brussels, and Vienna, our researchers have a century of combined years of experience. We have made Nazi-era provenance research a hallmark of our expertise.