Following in the digital footsteps of Egon Schiele
The Egon Schiele Autograph Database (ESDA) research platform at the Leopold Museum
The ESDA database at the Leopold Museum offers insights into the life and work of Egon Schiele (1890–1918), the internationally best-known representative of Austrian Expressionism. It records all known autographs by, to, and about Schiele and makes them available online. A selection of these correspondences is also available in the Kulturpool.
Sitting with Schiele
Following a comprehensive overhaul at the end of 2024, the world's most comprehensive research platform on Egon Schiele offers appealing and direct access to digitized sources.
Based on the publications of the art critic Arthur Roessler (1877–1955) and the art dealer, collector, and author Christian M. Nebehay (1909–2003), the database catalogs all known autographs by and addressed to Egon Schiele (1890–1918), as well as documents by third parties concerning him and other Schiele-related materials from Austrian and international collections. It makes these resources accessible online to researchers and the wider public.
Currently, approximately 3,170 objects are accessible in the ESDA (as of May 2026). In addition to biographical documents, notebooks and sketchbooks, photographs, and poems and manifestos written by the artist, the archival materials primarily comprise correspondence from Schiele’s private and professional circles. Since 2024, Schiele’s paintings have also been incorporated into the database, limited to works that are explicitly or presumably mentioned in the documents. Links between the archival materials, as well as to the paintings, exhibitions, and publications referenced therein, are intended to encourage users to explore and conduct research within the database.
Private insights
The correspondence concerns matters such as the organization of exhibitions and the sale of Schiele’s paintings and drawings. It also addresses, among other topics, his experiences during his travels and his military service in the Austro-Hungarian Army, while also bearing witness to Schiele’s lively exchanges with fellow artists and collectors of his work. The wealth of archival materials thus offers direct and multifaceted insights into the artist’s life and work.
Some of his correspondence even reveals details about the creation of his paintings. For example, on June 21, 1913, Schiele wrote to one of his earliest patrons: “Dear Mr. [Carl] Reininghaus! I have been in Krummau [sic] for several days now, as I wish to study a number of townscapes here! […] I believe we shall meet in Vienna? in the studio, to work on the large painting ‘The Conversion‘?”
The artist also frequently wrote brief postcards during excursions or in everyday life in order to arrange meetings. A postcard from Schiele to his fellow student and brother-in-law Anton Peschka, dated May 1 , 1915, vividly conveys the atmosphere of his studio on Hietzinger Hauptstraße: “Memories of the palette! – the air in the studio – the smell of paint – transience – like the people in the picture – such is the power of the pencil! Yours E. S.” On the one hand, Schiele was alluding to the motif of the art postcard; on the other hand, this can be understood as a comment on the ochre-colored paint residue that he presumably left on the written side unintentionally.
In 2023, the Leopold Museum Private Foundation acquired an extensive collection of more than 900 Schiele autographs and photographs from a private collection, which are accessible through the ESDA; a selection of them is also accessible via the Kulturpool search portal.