# What Wally Neuzil Left in Her Own Hand > Schiele's Portrait of Wally settled for 19 million dollars in 2010. The Wally-Neuzil-Society counts about six surviving documents in her own handwriting, and her grave in Sinj was located only in 2015. > The Study - 2026-09-26 > Canonical HTML: https://iconotheca.com/study/what-wally-neuzil-left-in-her-own-hand/ ## Key points - The Wally-Neuzil-Society, which is headed by the provenance researcher who worked on the New York case, states that very few sources in Wally Neuzil's own handwriting are available or documented: probably three of the sixteen Vienna registration forms, one receipt, one letter of 1915 and a few words on a New Year postcard. - Her grave was located only in 2015, by the Croatian journalist Lana Bunjevac, in Sinj north of Split. Robert Holzbauer visited it in 2016 and found the corresponding entry in the Book of the Dead of the city of Sinj. - Restoring the grave was costed at around 2,000 euros in 2017. The picture of her had settled seven years earlier for 19 million dollars. - Our own record repeated that she had modelled for Klimt. The Wally-Neuzil-Society says that story seems very doubtful, because no work by Klimt showing Wally Neuzil is known. The caption is corrected in this push. - The Leopold Museum dates her modelling for Schiele to early 1911. The Wally-Neuzil-Society's biography page puts the meeting in 1912 and finds evidence she was in Vienna during 1911, but two other Society texts, including its chairman's own published abstract, say around 1911. The date is a range, not a settled fact. - She was born in Tattendorf on 18 August 1894 to Thekla Pfneisl, a day-labourer, and Josef Neuzil, an elementary school teacher, who married on 11 March 1895, after her birth. ## The panel has a fuller record than the woman in it ## She was born in Tattendorf before her parents married ## She had a job in a shop while she sat for him ## Our own record said she had modelled for Klimt, and the specialists doubt it ## Six pieces of handwriting, as far as anyone has found ## In 1915 he married someone else and she became a nurse ## She died on Christmas Day 1917 and was buried two days later ## Nineteen million dollars for the picture, about two thousand euros for the grave ## The institution that owns the portrait also narrates her ## Why this archive is free to read The picture of Wally Neuzil has been catalogued, subpoenaed, seized, litigated, valued, settled, stamped and advertised, and the woman in it left about six pieces of paper in her own handwriting, four words of which are a signature on somebody else's postcard. Her grave's location was not generally known until 2015, and repairing it was costed at about 2,000 euros, raised by a small association with funds committed by the village she was born in. An archive that can trace a panel through thirteen recorded provenance stages and a federal forfeiture action should be able to say, without embarrassment, how much less it knows about the person in the frame. That is the honest entry, and it is the one this record now carries. ## Questions **Who was Wally Neuzil?** Walburga Neuzil, 18 August 1894 to 25 December 1917, was Egon Schiele's model and companion from 1911 or 1912 until 1915, and the sitter for his Portrait of Wally Neuzil of 1912. The Leopold Museum records that while she modelled for him she was also working as a sales assistant, a cashier and a mannequin at a clothing store. After the relationship ended she trained as an auxiliary nurse, served in military hospitals in Vienna, went to Dalmatia in 1917 and died of scarlet fever at Sinj, aged 23. **How did Wally Neuzil die?** She died of scarlet fever on 25 December 1917 in the military hospital at Sinj in Dalmatia, then part of Austria-Hungary, where she was serving as an auxiliary nurse. The death book of the city of Sinj records her burial in St Francis Cemetery on 27 December 1917. **Where is Wally Neuzil buried, and was her grave really lost?** She is buried in St Francis Cemetery in Sinj, in what is now Croatia. The grave's location was not generally known until 2015, when the Croatian journalist Lana Bunjevac tracked it down. The provenance researcher Robert Holzbauer visited it in 2016 and matched it to the entry in the city's book of the dead, and the Wally-Neuzil-Society renovated the tomb in 2017 at a cost put at around 2,000 euros. **Did Wally Neuzil model for Gustav Klimt?** Two specialist bodies say there is no evidence that she did. The Wally-Neuzil-Society calls the story that Klimt passed her on to Schiele a common myth and says it seems very doubtful, on the grounds that Klimt was not using very young models at that time and that no work by Klimt showing Wally Neuzil is known. The Klimt Foundation's catalogue database, addressing the Portrait of Wally of 1916 that burned at Immendorf, states that its title does not allow the sitter to be identified and that the assumption that she was Wally Neuzil rests on no evidence. This archive had repeated the claim and has corrected it. **How much survives in Wally Neuzil's own handwriting?** Very little. The Wally-Neuzil-Society lists probably three of the sixteen registration forms held by the archives of the city of Vienna, a receipt for Schiele's landlord Moritz Otto Kuntschik, a letter of 1915 to the painter Felix Albrecht Harta, and four words added to a postcard Schiele sent to Alfred Spitzer on 31 December 1912, now Albertina inventory DG2003/2798. **What happened to the painting after she died?** The panel passed through the Viennese dealer Lea Bondi Jaray, was taken from her under National Socialism, and ended in the collection of Rudolf Leopold and then the Leopold Museum. It was subpoenaed in New York in January 1998 while on loan to the Museum of Modern Art, seized on a federal warrant in September 1999 after the Court of Appeals quashed that subpoena, and held by the United States for almost eleven years while United States v. Portrait of Wally proceeded. Title was never adjudicated. On 19 July 2010 the museum paid the Bondi Jaray estate 19 million dollars in settlement and kept it. None of that ownership history involves her. ## Sources - [1] Wally-Neuzil-Gesellschaft / Wally-Neuzil-Society, "About Wally Neuzil", for the birth at Tattendorf on 18 August 1894 from the parish register, Thekla Pfneisl as a day-labourer and Josef Neuzil as an elementary school teacher, the marriage of 11 March 1895 after the birth, the sisters and half-brothers, the father's death at Moedling in February 1902 and the widow's pension, the doubt cast on the Klimt story, the prison drawings and the orange, the August 1917 registration form for Sebenico, the Benesch postcard, the posting to the k. k. Landwehr-Marodenhaus at Sinj in the Austrian war archive, the death on 25 December 1917 and the burial in St Francis Cemetery on 27 December per the death book of Sinj. - [2] Wally-Neuzil-Gesellschaft / Wally-Neuzil-Society, "Research", for the count of surviving autographs (sixteen registration forms in the archives of the city of Vienna, probably three in her hand; the receipt for Moritz Otto Kuntschik; the letter to Felix Albrecht Harta of 1915), the postcard to Dr Alfred Spitzer of 31 December 1912 at the Albertina under DG2003/2798 with the words also from Wally Neuzil, the correction made to the Leopold Museum's autograph database, Holzbauer's supervision of the New York case and his 2016 visit to the grave while lecturing at the University of Zadar, the discovery of the mother's and sisters' graves in Baden through the Badener Zeitung of 1933, and the 2021 lecture title on myths and facts. - [3] David D'Arcy, "The grave of Schiele's muse, Wally Neuzil, found in Croatia", The Art Newspaper, 22 November 2017, for Lana Bunjevac tracking down the grave in Sinj north of Split two years earlier, Robert Holzbauer's restoration campaign at a cost of around 2,000 euros, the exhibition Who Was Wally Neuzil? at Galerija Galiotovic reported as opening on 19 December, Tattendorf's committed funds, the death of scarlet fever on Christmas Day 1917, and the 19 million dollar settlement of 2010 followed by the Austrian postage stamp of 2011. Read 26 September 2026. - [4] Leopold Museum, exhibition archive, "WALLY NEUZIL" (27 February to 7 September 2015), curated by Diethard Leopold, Stephan Pumberger and Birgit Summerauer, for the museum's dating of her modelling to early 1911, the move to Krumau in spring 1911, her work as a sales assistant, cashier and mannequin at a clothing store, her support during the imprisonment of April 1912, the separation of 1915, her nurse training and war hospital work in Vienna, her volunteering for Dalmatia in 1917 and death from scarlet fever aged 23, and the museum's mirror gaze and modern Mona Lisa readings. - [5] Leopold Museum, press materials, "WALLY NEUZIL. Her Life with Egon Schiele", for the exhibition, which ran from 27 February 2015 to 1 June and was extended to 7 September, and for the reproduced baptismal record of the parish of Tattendorf with the entry for Wally Neuzil dated 19 August 1894, Tomus V 1894 to 1932, which sits in the press image list PDF 415_WN_Bilderliste_verlaengert.pdf hanging off this page. The same press text keeps the Klimt story alive in hedged form, saying she became Schiele's model perhaps through Klimt's mediation. - [6] Robert Holzbauer, "TKO JE BILA WALLY NEUZIL? / WHO WAS WALLY NEUZIL?", 11 pages, abstract read on Academia.edu, for the publication having been made for an exhibition in the town of Sinj where the Wally-Neuzil-Society renovated her tomb in 2017. The full text is behind a sign-in wall; the abstract was read in the in-app browser after a plain fetch returned HTTP 403. - [7] Klimt Foundation, Vienna, Klimt catalogue database, entry covering the final years, for the statement that the title of the Portrait of Wally of 1916 does not allow the sitter to be identified and that the repeated assumption that she was Egon Schiele's model and lover Wally Neuzil rests on no evidence. The painting was in the Lederer collection, burned at Schloss Immendorf in 1945 and survives in a black and white photograph; it is Novotny and Dobai, Gustav Klimt, 1968, catalogue number 200.