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Transience and death are existential themes that Schiele repeatedly dares to tackle - here linked to a biographical episode. It shows a couple, a young woman clinging to her lover with both arms. The man is a self-portrait of Schiele; his gaze goes nowhere. The fragile equilibrium - indicated by the unstable posture of the two - seems to shatter at any moment. The girl is his long-time partner and model Wally Neuzil, whom he left to marry the middle-class Edith Harms. After the separation, Neuzil trained as a nurse and died of scarlet fever in 1917 while serving in the war.
This painting is also referred to as Embracing Figures (Verschlungene Menschen). The woman's buttocks, originally bare, were supposedly painted over at Arthur Roessler's instigation.
The painting is signed and dated top right: EGON / SCHIELE / 1915.
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