One of Egon Schiele’s many eerie self-depictions, Self Portrait with Lowered Head is striking for its accentuation of the hands and the omitted thumb. Thumbs seem not to fit into Schiele’s visual vocabulary—he often omits them or renders them at severe angles. Schiele’s head is bent, the eyes turned upwards, his lip sporting a small mustache, which Schiele only had in between the late fall of 1911 and beginning of 1912. The series of expressive self-portraits of the year 1912 is continued in 1914, when Schiele had Anton Josef Trčka take photographs of himself. Each photograph is consciously constructed and plays effectively with eccentric gestures and facial expressions.
