Seated Nude in Shoes and Stockings

Seated Nude in Shoes and Stockings is a stark and powerful drawing created by Egon Schiele in 1918, the final year of his life. Executed primarily in charcoal on paper, this work exemplifies Schiele's highly expressive and angular draftsmanship. The piece depicts a female figure positioned uncomfortably, often indicative of the psychological tension that defines the artist’s oeuvre. Characteristic of Schiele’s unflinching portrayal of the human form, the model is nude save for high stockings and heeled shoes, accessories that heighten both the vulnerability and the deliberate provocation of the composition.

Schiele was a central figure in the Austrian Expressionist movement, and this study is a mature example of his career-long focus on raw emotional states and the complex inner life of his subjects. The artist masterfully employs sharp, agitated contour lines to define the body's structure, utilizing the stark white of the paper as negative space and minimal shading to foreground the nervous tension of the pose. His radical approach to the figure, particularly his extensive catalog of female nudes, challenged conventional artistic standards and elevated the status of the drawing medium in modern art.

This late work, created shortly before his premature death, reflects the urgent and sometimes desperate quality evident in his final artistic output. Schiele’s intense concentration on the figure, stripped of decorative context, provides a direct confrontation between the viewer and the sitter. This pivotal piece resides in the permanent collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where it remains an important reference for those studying modern drawings and the distribution of expressionist prints worldwide.