Egon Schiele was a prodigious talent, but he struggled to make ends meet, especially in the early years of his career. He was romantically involved with his model, Wally Neuzil, who stood by him in the face of strong hostility. He eventually parted ways with Neuzil. In 1915, he married Edith Harms, the daughter of a middle-class family he had met as a neighbor. Her warm and devoted nature provided Schiele with a sense of stability.

Most of Schiele’s early nudes were emaciated and tense and seem to be expressions of inner turmoil. However, his later works reveal fuller, more relaxed figures, perhaps mirroring the emotional stability he found with his wife Edith. The emphasis on the vitality of the human form and the focus of the psychological dimension always remained true to Schiele over the years.