Beschreibung:

Egon Schiele (1890-1918)
Autograph letter signed ('Egon Schiele') to his mother, Marie Schiele, Hietzinger Hauptstraße 101, Vienna, 23 November 1914
In German. Two pages, 176 x 111mm. Envelope, with Schiele's autograph name and address on verso. Provenance: Sotheby's, 18 & 19 May 1989, lot 326.
'The past is without life'. A remarkable letter to his mother on the eve of his sister's marriage, advising her to abandon all claims on her daughter and forget about their life together as a family: 'You must recognize that as a mother you have done your duty as far as possible until tomorrow, 24 November 1914 – now life is changing as the times are and you must give way to youth and understand and follow all their views and actions; such is the cycle of existence, to promote and respect the "new" – the past is without life, never think about how those closest to you were once so closely bound together – that is gone and that time will never come again, nor its customs and usages'.
'Du mußt erkennen daß Du als Mutter bis morgen den 24 November 1914 Deine Pflicht, so weit es möglich war, getan hast – nun wendet sich das Leben wie die Zeit und Du mußt der Jugend den Weg räumen und alle ihre Ansichten und Taten erfassen und befolgen; das ist der Kreislauf des Daseins das "Neue" zu fördern und zu achten – die Vergangenheit ist ohne Leben, nie daran denken wie Deine Nächsten sich einstmals verbündeten – dies ist fort und diese Zeit kommt nie wieder, nie ihre Sitte und Gebräuche'.
Schiele's sister Gertrude ('Gerti') married his friend, the painter Anton Peschka (1885-1940) on the following day. Schiele refers in the opening lines to a letter he had written the same day to his sister, in which he urged her with a similar tone of foreboding to cling on to hope in the dark times of 1914. Schiele's relationship with Gertrude in their childhood was so close that their father seems to have suspected it of being incestuous. Published in Nebehay, no. 715.