Reclining Woman

• Egon Schiele (1890–1918)
• 1917
• Oil on canvas
• Leopold Museum, Vienna

Egon Schiele depicted his wife Edith Harms from a top view. The shape of her arms folded behind her head is mirrored in the posture of her wide-spread legs, structuring the composition in roughly symmetrical body halves. This painting was shown at the 49th Exhibition of the Vienna Secession in 1918 for which Schiele had also designed the poster. Schiele gained his first financial success in this exhibition, but the spanish flu spread in Austria that year and killed the pregnant Edith. Three days after her death, Schiele also died from the flu, on October 31.