Collection/1900s

Self-Portrait with Physalis by Egon Schiele

Egon Schiele turns toward us with a sharp, wary look, his head tilted, next to a branch of red Chinese lantern fruit. He was 22 when he painted it in Vienna in 1912.

He painted it as a pair with a portrait of his partner, Wally Neuzil, and the two still hang together. Schiele died six years later, at 28, in the Spanish flu epidemic.