When it came to painting Portrait of Edith, a portrait of his wife, Egon Schiele finally broke his usual pattern of nudity and eroticism.

Instead, this piece focuses on his wife’s colorful dress, her hair, and her embarrassment at being painted (her blushing face). And funnily enough, this kind of influence of innocence existed not only in this portrait, but also in his personal life. Before he met Edith, he was a notorious sexual deviant. According to Schiele’s mother, Edith was the perfect daughter-in-law who went on to have outstanding success in softening of Schiele’s character.

Edith Harms was a middle class girl whose family moved next door to Schiele’s studio in Vienna. At the time, Schiele was involved with a model named Wally Neuzil, who had actually posed for Schiele’s mentor Klimt and was believed to have been Klimt’s mistress. But Edith and her sister Adele both caught Schiele's eye from across the way. Schiele, believing both Edith and her sister Adele to be beautiful, began to wave his paintings at them and make suggestive gestures from the window. I know what you’re thinking, it sounds exactly like the start of any beautiful romance: Boy makes obscene gestures at girl and her sister while in relationship with somepone else. And to make matters worse, Schiele was actually involved with Adele later on, after he married Edith.

But they did get married just the same, three days before Schiele conscripted for the World War I. In the army, he was shipped off to various European locations, where he tried to paint along the way. Perhaps most notably during his war travels, he painted Russian prisoners of war. He also painted this portrait of Edith while on sick leave, which just goes to show the value of a well-used sick day.

And if you’re now as invested in Schiele’s romantic life as I am, it’s worth noting that even after he married Edith he suggested to Wally Neuzil that they continue to take “yearly vacations” together. She declined, then walked out of the room and never spoke to him again.

In 1918, there was a massive flu epidemic that claimed over 20,000 lives in Europe. Sadly, Edith, who was pregnant at the time, died of the flu, followed three days later by Schiele who was just twenty-eight years old; a budding talent lost.