Egon Schiele: Double Portrait of Heinrich and Otto Benesch
Double Portrait of Heinrich and Otto,1913, oil on canvas, 121 x 130 cm, Inv. Nr. 12, acquired 1953 Egon Schiele, born 1890 in Tulln, died 1918 in Vienna
The "Double Portrait of Heinrich and Otto Benesch", painted in 1913, is considered one of the main works of Austrian Expressionism.
The psychologizing painting depicts two friends of the artist's: Heinrich Benesch, fatherly friend since 1908, devoted Schiele collector, central inspector for the Royal and Imperial Railway, and his son Otto Benesch, then 17 years old, later an art historian and director of the Graphic Art Collection of the Albertina in Vienna, who was instrumental in paving the way for the later establishment of the Schiele Collection in the Albertina.
