2024 has come to an end and it has been another special and unforgettable year. These final days of the year, we look back on all the great exhibitions and programmes that we have organised. The year started with the exhibition Just Like Escher, in which we showed how contemporary artists and designers challenge Escher’s ideas. During the summer, our newest addition to the collection, the White cat, was on display and there was a competition where everyone could submit their self-made cat artwork. Visitors could also enjoy two summer exhibitions: Becoming Escher and Maura Biava. Currently, the exhibitions on Julie de Graag and on a special donation containing two unknown drawings by M.C. Escher are still on view. In addition, we have shared as many stories as possible about the person, life and art of Escher through our social media channels, our website and the in-depth pieces we write. All the wonderful images we shared this year can be found in this special animation. We thank everyone for their support over the past year and hope to continue to inspire you with our stories and images in 2025!

2024 marks the centenary of the death of Julie de Graag. This talented contemporary of M.C. Escher managed in her woodcuts to capture the essence of plants, animals and people with just a few details. The two artists shared a great love of nature, closely observing the world around them, and depicting it in their prints, each in their own unique way. In the winter of 2024-2025, Escher in The Palace is presenting De Graag’s rich body of work in an exhibition side by side with that of M.C. Escher.

Julie de Graag used her life drawing talent to capture what she saw before her in crisp woodcuts. Her stylised work gave ordinary subjects like animals, landscapes, flowers and plants a certain grandeur. Julie de Graag’s style was already well developed when Escher embarked on his career. In 1919 he was a mere beginner, starting his studies at the School of Architecture and Decorative Arts in Haarlem. He was trained in the same visual tradition in which De Graag worked, Art Nouveau, which was all about the stylisation of the subject. But although this is reflected in several of his early works, Escher soon went his own way.

While Escher became a world-famous master printmaker, De Graag is now appreciated mainly by aficionados. There are only scant sources on De Graag, though it is possible to gain an impression of her family and her life on the basis of archival documents. She was born in Gorinchem, Zuid-Holland province, on 18 July 1877 and was christened Anna Julia de Graag, though she was known as Julie. Her mother, Karolina Stephana de Graag-Couwenberg, was from a family of artists, which explains Julie de Graag’s talent for drawing. Karolina married Johannes de Graag on 16 October 1872.* They had six children: two sons and four daughters. Julie was their fourth child. The family moved to The Hague when she was a child, in connection with her father’s work as a registrar. There, from the age of twelve, she attended lessons at the Academy of Art (now KABK).** Having learned several techniques such as modelling and life drawing, she decided to specialise in printmaking.

Delicate health and resilience

Neither Escher nor De Graag enjoyed a carefree childhood. From a young age, they both faced health problems and were frequently absent from school. Escher was often ill as a child, and spent extended periods in convalescent homes from the age of seven. De Graag had a sheltered childhood, and even as an adult continued to need a lot of support, mainly from her mother. For both of them, physical frailty made them somewhat isolated. Undeterred by this, however, they both unhesitatingly committed themselves to the life of an artist.

After trying out several things, Escher chose to train as an artist at the School of Architecture and Decorative Arts. The man who taught him printmaking techniques, Samuel Jessurun de Mesquita, recognised his talent and encouraged the young Escher. It was during this period that the foundations of his later artistic career were laid. During his training he had an opportunity to study and sketch animals at Artis zoo in Amsterdam. Escher loved observing animals for long periods of time. He was particularly interested in birds, reptiles and fish, which he captured with a keen eye for detail. These animals later appeared in his work, including Paradise (1921). Like Escher, Julie de Graag was frequently absent from school as a child, but this did not prevent her from learning, and studying subjects that interested her. She taught herself zoology and botany, for example, which led her to produce prints of flora and fauna that were full of character. Take Two Owls (1921), for instance, in which the bird in front looks watchful and defensive as it protects the anxious-looking owl behind. Although she had a particular talent for black-and-white images, she also often elected to use vibrant colours, and tended to work in relatively small formats. Her animal prints are often unpretentious, yet full of character. This can for example be seen in the satisfied face of her Sitting Cat (1917), which measures only 5.4 by 3.9 cm.

Artistic circles

In 1901 Julie de Graag met art teacher and expert Henk Bremmer when she took one of his courses. She admired him, and sought his approval. She also wrote to him asking if he would like to have a portrait she had made of him.*** Bremmer was a fan of De Graag’s work, and he brought her to the attention of collectors, as a result of which her work ended up in the collection of the Kröller-Müller Museum and other institutions. Bremmer was an important figure for many Dutch artists in the early 20th century. The ‘Bremmerians’, as this group was known, were all inspired by him. Julie de Graag is also regarded as a member of this circle.

Some of the other women in the group became lifelong friends of De Graag’s, including Anna Egter van Wissekerke, who allowed her friend to use her studio in villa De Lingenskamp in Laren, Noord-Holland. Like famous contemporaries including Piet Mondrian and Bart van der Leck, De Graag was attracted to the natural setting of this artists’ community, and she moved there in 1904.**** The fact that De Graag was a hub of the artistic community there is apparent from a letter that Egter van Wissekerke wrote to Bremmer: ‘The Mendeses are asking whether you are ever going to come again. I also heard v.d. Leck saying to Miss De Graag that they never hear from you. You see that the best part of half of Laren is asking after you.’***** The Mendeses referred to here are Anna and Joseph Mendes da Costa, sister and brother-in-law of Escher’s teacher Samuel Jessurun de Mesquita. It is thus likely that De Graag and Escher had heard of each other. They moved in the same artistic circles, though it is not clear whether they ever actually met or knew one another. What is certain, however, is that they were both fascinated by the medium of printmaking.

Meticulous observation

From the moment De Graag moved to Laren, she largely made woodcuts, managing to capture the natural beauty of the world in the wood. Hardly any of her early work has survived, however, having been destroyed in a devastating fire on New Year’s Day 1908. Her studio was lost completely. The fire also destroyed all of her woodcut materials, so she was forced to switch to painting for a while. But her love of printmaking persisted, and De Graag returned to it, encouraged by those around her. In her work, she focused on the things she was appreciated for: images of animals and the natural world, as in the distinctive Dog’s Head (1920), in which she beautifully depicts a dog’s devoted look. This may have been her own dog, which barely survived the fire.

The work of these two artists reflects their appreciation of the beauty of nature. The subject continued to attract Escher even after he left for Italy in the 1920s following graduation. He cherished both the mountains of Italy and trips to the seaside. Unlike Escher, De Graag did not travel much, drawing inspiration mainly from her immediate surroundings in the village where she lived. She would also create small biological collections in her studio. Interestingly, their love of small things meant the two artists were attracted to similar creatures. Good examples of this are their images of a nautilus and a cockle. These are not shells – as the titles they were later given suggest – but animals that have shells as part of their anatomy. To these small creatures, the shell is like a permanent home which they cannot exchange for another. When it came to shells, Julie de Graag had an expert in the family: her sister Maria, who had travelled along the Pacific coast of South America collecting shells. This nautilus shell comes from tropical waters, so it could well have been a gift from her sister.******

A focus on ordinary subjects is quite evident in the early work of M.C. Escher and the work of Julie de Graag. They saw the natural beauty of the world around them, and produced powerful prints on the basis of this shared fascination. The exhibition explores themes like nature, portraits and animals, and also the techniques they chose. Featuring prints and drawings from the collection of Kunstmuseum Den Haag, the exhibition thus sheds new light on these geniuses of printmaking.

Sources
* The Hague Municipal Archives, 0335-01 Ambtenaar van de burgerlijke stand van de gemeente ’s-Gravenhage, inv.no. 654, doc. no. 667. Archival research by Babs van Eijk
** The Hague Municipal Archives, 0058-01 Academie van Beeldende Kunsten, 1889, inv.no. 458. Archival research by Babs van Eijk
*** The Hague Municipal Archives, 0836-01 Familie Bremmer, inv.no. 1-0007. Letter from Julie de Graag to H.P. Bremmer, 30 May 1916
**** A. de Ranitz, ‘Bij het werk van Julie de Graag’, Maandblad voor Beeldende Kunsten 4 (1927), p. 227; J.P. Hinrichs, Bremmerianen. Julie de Graag en haar kring: tien kunstenaressen in Den Haag en Laren, Leiden 2024, p. 77
***** The Hague Municipal Archives, 0836-01 Familie Bremmer, inv.no. 1-0006. Letter from Anna Egter van Wissekerke to H.P. Bremmer, 2 August 1916
****** K.J. Mienis, ‘De Gezusters M.J. en A.J. de Graag: een schelpen verzamelaarster en een kunstenares’, Correspondentieblad NMV 323 (2001) 1, pp. 107-108

All prints shown are part of the collection of Kunstmuseum Den Haag. The print entitled Sitting Cat is a long-term loan from the Wibbina Foundation.

My predecessors at Escher in The Palace have often written about Escher’s Belvedere (1958), a favourite with our visitors. The print has a magical power that touches millions of Escher fans around the world. What appears at first to be simply a fantastical building turns out to be an impossible structure. How can it be that the ladder starts at the inside and ends at the outside of the building? And why are the pillars at the front and back connected? The figures wandering around the structure add to its mysterious character. Interestingly, Escher drew inspiration for these characters from Jheronimus Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights (1490-1500), part of which he had copied more than twenty years earlier. With the Italian mountain landscape in the background, this lithograph is a surprising mix of completely different elements.

It is not only the foreground of the print that has been a mystery. For many years, the landscape in the background was too. Research has shown that Escher did not invent the background of Belvedere, however. The landscape really does exist, in Italy. Escher lived in this country for more than a decade, and such vistas are common in his early prints. Aspects of Italy also recur in his later work. Think, for example, of the prominent role played by the village of Atrani in his three-part Metamorphoses series (1937, 1939-1940, 1967-1968) and the terraced Italian landscape that forms the backdrop to Waterfall (1961). Like Atrani, it is possible to pinpoint the precise location of the background in Belvedere: the village of Pettorano sul Gizio in the Abruzzo region, which Escher visited a number of times, including on an extensive tour in May and June 1929. The trip prompted a desire to produce an illustrated book about the region, so while there he made countless drawings of villages like Scanno and Pettorano sul Gizio. Later that year, he would develop many of them into prints. The book never came to be, but with 6 prints and 28 drawings, the trip certainly bore fruit. *

Escher visited Pettorano sul Gizio during this trip to Abruzzo with his close friend Giuseppe Haas-Triverio (1889–1963), with whom he made several tours of Italy and Corsica. Their visit to Pettorano sul Gizio was only brief. The two friends travelled there from Pescocostanzo, via Rivisondoli and Rocca Pia, on Wednesday 5 June 1929, and on 6 June they left for the larger town of Sulmano. Haas-Triverio’s journal shows that their stay in Pettorano sul Gizio was nothing to write home about. They arrived in the village at seven in the evening, to find that all the hotels were fully booked. They eventually managed to rent a private room, which was so dirty that Haas-Triverio describes it in detail in his journal. At night, an army of insects kept him awake and, hoping for a more peaceful night’s rest, Escher used large amounts of insecticide. After a very disturbed night, the friends set out in order to go sketching.

“We left our rucksacks at a small, clean restaurant and went in search of subjects. In the end, we did not feel like working, but felt we must. An oil sketch. We ate at the trattoria, and then made another small sketch.” **

While Haas-Triverio produced an oil sketch that has since been lost, Escher made a drawing of Pettorano sul Gizio and the valley beyond. The drawing focuses on the square houses of the Italian village in the foreground, but he also leaves plenty of room for the depth of the Gizio valley and the high mountain ridges. This preliminary study helped Escher produce a more detailed scratch drawing in October of the same year. The scratch drawing is in Kunstmuseum Den Haag’s collection, and the study is in a private collection in the US.

Escher was producing woodcuts with greater and greater ease in 1929, so the scratch drawings were a way of seeking more technical challenges. His scratch drawings were made after visits to various inhospitable regions of Italy. Besides Pettorano sul Gizio, he also drew Opi, Cerro al Volturno and Alfedena in Abruzzo, and Santa Severina in Calabria. The scratch drawings were made on thick, impenetrable parchment and can be recognised thanks to the gentle transitions from dark black to a golden beige colour, which makes them almost appear to glow in the dark.

This technique, devised by Escher himself, was described by his father George Arnold Escher in his journal:

‘We looked at the sketches Mauk made on his trip to Abruzzo, and developed one of them at Steckborn using a new procedure he has devised, namely applying a layer of printer’s ink over thick paper (parchment-like) that is impenetrable to oil and, by scratching away more or less of it using a small pocket knife, revealing tints of various shades. It is suitable mainly for darker drawings, like the interiors of churches and other buildings, taking less effort to depict light than dark.’***

During his visit to his parents, Escher’s close childhood friend Bas Kist came by. Having seen the scratch drawings, Kist advised Escher to make lithographs, and he followed the advice. This important decision to embrace lithography was therefore directly influenced by the scratch drawings. Escher had not made lithographs since his student days, so he turned to his former teacher H.B. Dieperink for some technical tips. Lithography then became a permanent element in his arsenal of printmaking techniques. The scratch drawings did not, however. This may be because of Escher’s love of printmaking, and his preference for the reproducibility of a lithograph or woodcut, rather than the uniqueness of a drawing. Nevertheless, they do warrant our attention, as the scratch drawings reflect his love of the Italian landscape and the abiding influence it would have on his work. ****

Despite the fact that Escher stopped making scratch drawings at a certain point, they proved popular at an exhibition held at Kunsthandel Martinus Liernur, a gallery in The Hague, in 1931. The exhibition presented a cross-section of Escher’s work since graduation, featuring Biblical scenes and the Emblemata series, as well as scratch drawings and prints of Italy. Art critic Jos de Gruyter wrote a lengthy review in Het Vaderland newspaper, which also discussed Pettorano sul Gizio in some detail:

‘The lithographs and related scratch drawings, as he calls them, emphatically testify to a greater sensitivity. I would rank his lithographs no. 39, Stilo, colla Fiumara, no. 44 Cloister near Rocca, Imperiale and no. 47, La Cattolica di Stilo in Calabria, among the most flawless and perfect that Escher has produced to date. The curious Pettorano sul Gizio (no. 50, above the fireplace) is however more fascinating and remarkable. The atmosphere of the landscape, which resembles a moonscape, is haunting. One is forced to wonder what kind of creatures might live in those regular, square, cubic structures in the foreground. Surely not people, for there is no trace of life, domesticity or warm blood. They must be stiff and unapproachable, the creatures that withdrew to these almost mathematically constructed square edifices to live an abstract and ascetic life. The drawing deserves much praise; the background, in particular, with the valley, mountains and sky, is beautifully, purely and tightly rendered.’ *****

The scratch drawings must therefore have been more than merely an experiment to Escher, otherwise he would not have shown them at Martinus Liernur’s gallery. They had a lasting impact on his work, not only because they led him to embrace lithography, but because elements of them inspired later prints. The simurgh (the mythical Persian creature with the power of speech) from the late scratch drawing Still Life (1943), for example, also appears in the prints Other World (1947) and Gallery (1946), and the valley and mountains near Pettorano sul Gizio provide the backdrop to Belvedere (1958). This is typical of Escher, who would occasionally decide to revisit subjects from decades before. In the case of Belvedere this occurred no less than 29 years later. Italy had an impact on Escher that would never fade.

Source
* M.C. Escher, His Life and Complete Graphic Work, edited by J.L. Locher, Abradale Press, 1982, p. 34
** Gemeinsam unterwegs. Giuseppe Haas-Triverio und M.C. Escher, Beat Stutzer, Scheidegger & Spiess, 2024, pp. 144-146 (translated into Dutch by Marijnke de Jong and Beat Stutzer)
*** M.C. Escher, His Life and Complete Graphic Work, edited by J.L. Locher, Abradale Press, 1982, p. 34; Levensschets G.A. Escher, National Archive of The Netherlands, inv. no. 2.21.371, 97 (6 July 1929)
**** Maurits C. Escher, een eigenzinnig talent, J.W. Vermeulen, Kok Lira, 1995, pp. 44-45
***** Houtsneden, litho’s en teekeningen door M.C. Escher. Bij Martinus Liernur, W. Jos de Gruyter, Het Vaderland. 8 October 1931

The management of Escher in The Palace is delighted at The Hague city council’s decision to grant a credit facility for the costs of redesigning the former US embassy on Lange Voorhout in The Hague to house the museum. This represents a first step towards its evolution to a fully-fledged museum accessible to all. The European tendering procedure for the design of the new museum will be launched shortly.

“The award of the credit facility is an important step on the way to a new and inspiring home for the Escher collection, working in close and effective collaboration with The Hague city council.”
– Jet de Ranitz, chair of the Supervisory Board of Escher in The Palace / Kunstmuseum Den Haag

“We manage the world’s largest museum collection of Escher’s work. This move will give us the opportunity to evolve into a fully-fledged museum accessible to all. I look forward to giving more space to contemporary makers who engage in a dialogue with Escher, and to welcoming more schools and other visitors than we can at our current premises.”
– Margriet Schavemaker, director of Escher in The Palace / Kunstmuseum Den Haag

Escher collection

The Hague city council owns more than 1000 objects by Dutch artist Maurits Cornelis Escher (1898-1972), making this the world’s largest museum collection of work by this internationally celebrated printmaker. The collection is managed by Kunstmuseum Den Haag. Since 2002, this collection has been presented and accompanied by educational programs at Escher in The Palace on The Hague’s Lange Voorhout. Visitor numbers have grown steadily from 74,000 a year to 187,000 in the Escher anniversary year 2023.

Unique gift relating to Escher’s tile tableau on an Amsterdam villa

M.C. Escher is world-famous for his optical illusions, but it is less well-known that he also made public artworks. In the winter of 1959-60, he designed a tile tableau with fish and birds, inspired by his famous print Sky and Water I (1938), for a villa at Dirk Schäferstraat 59 in the south of Amsterdam. It was commissioned by Wolbert J. Vroom, a great admirer of Escher’s work, who was looking for a black-and-white image to decorate the facade of his newly built home.

The Vroom family has recently donated two previously unseen Escher drawings for this project to the museum plus the extensive correspondence relating to the commission and family photos of the unveiling of the tableau, which Escher attended. These objects give us a glimpse behind the scenes of the creation of a unique work in Escher’s oeuvre.

An Escher or nothing

Wolbert J. Vroom and his wife Antonia H.M. Dreesmann contacted Escher in 1959. They had been living in their new villa on Dirk Schäferstraat for almost a year and wanted to enliven its facade with a work of art. They briefly considered a mosaic but thought Escher’s black-and-white work better suited to the building’s modern architecture. When Dreesmann showed her husband a reproduction of Escher’s 1956 work Swans (White Swans, Black Swans), there was no doubt about the way forward. Vroom later wrote to Escher: ‘We (my wife and I) are both enthusiastic about your work and it is to be an Escher or nothing.’

Escher proposed to base the tableau on his print Sky and Water I, in which fish gradually metamorphose into birds. The diamond-shaped design would introduce a diagonal dynamic to the modern villa’s orthogonal lines and Escher’s tessellations would lend themselves well to an arrangement of tiles. Escher soon enlisted the ceramics factory De Porceleyne Fles (now Royal Delft) to make the tiles. He had collaborated with them on tiled columns for the Maris College in The Hague and would do so again a decade later for a project at a secondary school in Baarn.

After a process of several months, the tableau was delivered in the spring of 1960 and unveiled in the presence of the clients, the villa’s architect Lau Peters and Escher. The commissioned larger tableau can still be seen on the villa on Dirk Schäferstraat.

Unknown drawings

The core of the gift comprises two unknown drawings that shed a special light on the design process. One of the design drawings shows the search for the right composition for the facade. Escher came up with two variants, one with a horizontal emphasis, the other vertical. He made a drawing of the facade and covered the horizontal design with a flap of paper with the vertical version, enabling an easy comparison of the two options. This should have made it simple for the Vrooms to reach their decision but the extensive correspondence between Escher, Vroom, De Porceleyne Fles and the architect Lau Peters, included in the gift, reveals tensions surrounding this important choice. There was a lengthy discussion between the various parties about which design it should be. The architect favoured the vertical variant, which would accentuate the building’s height, but Vroom and Escher stood firm. In the end, it was the horizontal diamond-shaped design that was chosen.

Escher elaborated the design in a more detailed drawing, on which he numbered the seventy-five tiles with his famous precision. The arrow indicates where Escher’s monogram MCE should be placed. The fabricator, De Porceleyne Fles, could now set to work. Although the process was not without some ruffles, all parties were ultimately enthusiastic about the result, as is evident from a letter from De Porceleyne Fles to Vroom: ‘We all agree that this tableau will truly be a jewel on your home.’

A commision to take home

For Escher this project had a personal sequel in the form of a lasting memento on his studio wall: a smaller tableau with the same tiles. But it was not initially self-evident that he would want this reminder of the project: although he enjoyed working on this exceptional assignment, at first Escher was dismissive. In 1959 he wrote to his son George and his wife Corrie: ‘There is a letter in the mailbox from the resident of a “villa” in Amsterdam South who wants to decorate his facade with tiles designed by me! It’s in the goddamned air, this tile nonsense.’ After a difficult experience with the tiled columns for the Johanna Westermanschool (now the Maris College) in The Hague, Escher was hesitant to start work on another design for tiles. But there is little of this reticence in his later correspondence with Vroom. Escher enjoys creating the instructional drawing of the different types of tiles and puts all his effort into achieving the best possible execution of his design. His enthusiasm for the end result is evident from the fact that he gladly received a smaller tableau from the Porceleyne Fles with the same tiles and hung it in his own studio for many years.

Escher was not the only one who was pleased with this small tableau. A sample of the tile tableau also hung in the showroom of De Porceleyne Fles, to show their customers the beautiful things they could make. When Abraham J. de Lorm, the director of the Gemeentemuseum Arnhem (now Museum Arnhem), visited De Porceleyne Fles in 1964, he saw the tableau in the showroom. He was very impressed and, with the permission of Escher and Vroom, had a smaller version made for the museum’s collection, which is identical to the tableau that Escher had in his studio. The sample tableau from the showroom of De Porceleyne Fles was purchased by the Dutch state around 1990 and is now in the collection of the Dutch Tile Museum in Otterlo.

Since the Just like Escher exhibition held between November 2023 and March 2024, the striking modular carpet from Studio Wae has been on display on the second floor at Escher in The Palace. This floor covering lends a contemporary touch to Escher’s legacy, above all doing so in a sustainable, circular way through the use of waste materials.

Set up by Tynke van den Heuvel (1975) in 2017, Studio Wae is a pioneering design studio striving to raise awareness when it comes to the recycling of raw materials. Studio Wae uses manufacturing waste to create modern design often inspired by Escher’s work. Escher in The Palace opted for colourful versions of the Polygon Rug and City Flooring, in which Escherian patterns feature prominently.

The modular function of the tiles dovetails neatly with Escher’s work. Studio Wae’s floors comprise individual parts, allowing them to be pieced together like a jigsaw. The way in which the shapes fit together is akin to the myriad versions of tessellations that Escher produced. Escher regarded a tessellation as a motif, the outer lines of which join seamlessly on all sides, enabling the pattern to continue ad infinitum. The many visits that Escher made to the Alhambra in the Spanish city of Granada were his major source of inspiration. This Spanish-Islamic fort and palace complex is bursting with all kinds of mosaic featuring abstract motifs, which he eagerly drew and made his own. These drawing sessions constitute an important foundation for the tessellations that he subsequently incorporated more and more into his work as cycles and metamorphoses.

Hence Studio Wae’s designs look like they have been extracted from Escher’s prints. Both the recognisable cube pattern from Polygon Rug and the pattern in the gallery on the second floor feature as tessellations in the print Cycle (1938). This print marks an early highlight in Escher’s oeuvre – a perfect amalgamation of the abstraction of a tessellation, the change intrinsic to a metamorphosis and the infinitude of the amazing world created by Escher.

 

During the exhibition on Julie de Graag, an installation by the Croatian artist Tina Iris Chulo will be displayed in the ballroom. In her work, Chulo aims to connect with the natural world, something she shares with Julie de Graag and M.C. Escher. She explores our relationship with other life forms in Feel Free to Talk to Plants (2024), with which she graduated from the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague this summer. Chulo sees our relationship with nature becoming weaker and weaker, even though this ancient connection can facilitate peace and reflection today. She found inspiration in witches and herbalists, who use rituals to strengthen their connection with nature.

Central to Chulo’s work is the art of slowing down, which is also reflected in her creative process. She worked on these cyanotypes for weeks in the darkroom at the Royal Academy, where Julie de Graag also studied. The slow photographic process of cyanotype, one of the oldest photographic techniques, results in Prussian blue prints. Chulo made her own paper and created numerous cyanotypes of abstract structures, human figures and plants. She deliberately chose medicinal plants and trees with a symbolic historical significance, such as thistles and olive trees. Her work stems from an admiration for nature, which Escher and De Graag also expressed in their own way.

It was not just collectors and fans of M.C. Escher who acquired his work during his lifetime. Friends and family also owned prints by Escher, like this lithograph below, Drawing Hands, from the estate of Antoinette Schottelius-De Ridder, better known as Tony de Ridder. Escher in The Palace recently received this work on long-term loan, and correspondence between Escher and De Ridder has, to our great delight, been donated to the museum.

Tony de Ridder (1886-1971) was a poet and author. She spent much of her life in Oosterbeek, in the east of the Netherlands, where she got to know the Escher family. As the daughter of a pastor, she was raised in the Christian faith, and her religion became the core of her life. She gave lectures on faith, published writings on it, and worked as a religious studies teacher, and M.C. Escher was one of her pupils. At the Remonstrant church, she taught him the catechism between the ages of seven and twelve. We do not know much about the friendship between De Ridder and Escher, but the printmaker and the idiosyncratic poet stayed in touch for decades. Escher made his first linocuts even before he started training as a printmaker. One of them is an early bookplate for Tony de Ridder. Escher was about 19 years old when he designed and printed it in multiple colours. Escher transformed De Ridder’s initials into ‘Toom dit ros’ (which means ‘Restrain this horse’), in an image that made reference to her surname (which means ‘knight’).

De Ridder kept abreast of developments in Escher’s life. She received her copy of Drawing Hands in 1950. He dedicated it to her with an affectionate message: ‘For Tony de Ridder, with great fondness 23-XI-‘50’. In the years that followed, they remained in contact, as evidenced by a letter to De Ridder of 1961, in which Escher expressed his wish to visit Oosterbeek again. However, his busy schedule prevented him from returning to the place where he had grown up. Three years before his death, they corresponded again, and Escher noted De Ridder’s birthday in his diary, so he would not forget it. They probably had contact in the preceding and intervening years, too, though no evidence has survived. We know for certain, however, that De Ridder and Escher had not lost touch. De Ridder died on Christmas Day 1971, followed three months later by Escher.

17 September 2024 to 16 February 2025

Maurits Cornelis Escher achieved world-wide fame with his optical illusions but it is less well known that he also made art for public spaces. In 1959-60, he designed a tile tableau with fish and birds, inspired by his famous print Sky and Water I (1938), for a villa in the south of Amsterdam. It was commissioned by Wolbert J. Vroom, a great admirer of Escher’s work, who was looking for a black-and-white image to decorate the facade of his newly built home. The Vroom family recently gifted two previously unseen Escher design drawings for this project to the museum. This remarkable gift also includes the extensive correspondence relating to the commission and family photos of the unveiling of the tableau, which Escher attended. The items will be displayed at Escher in The Palace from 17 September.

A unique commission
Wolbert J. Vroom and his wife Antonia H.M. Dreesmann contacted Escher in 1959 because they wanted a title tableau for the facade of their house at Dirk Schäferstraat 59 in the south of Amsterdam. Escher proposed to base the tableau on his print Sky and Water I in which fish gradually metamorphose into birds. The diamond-shaped design would add a diagonal dynamic to the modern villa’s orthogonal lines. Escher had the tiles made by De Porceleyne Fles, the earthenware manufacturer now known internationally as Royal Delft. Escher worked with them on several occasions, including on the production of tiles for schools in The Hague and in Baarn.

The two drawings give us an insight into the design process. One of the design drawings shows the search for the right composition. Escher came up with two variants, one with a horizontal emphasis, the other vertical. He made a drawing of the facade and covered the horizontal design with a flap of paper with the vertical version, enabling an easy comparison of the two options. This should have made it simple for the Vrooms to reach their decision but the extensive correspondence between Escher, Vroom, De Porceleyne Fles and the architect Lau Peters reveals tensions surrounding this important choice. The various parties discussed at length which design it should be before finally settling upon the horizontal, diamond-shaped design. Escher elaborated the design in a detailed drawing, on which he numbered all the tiles with his famous precision, leaving nothing to chance. The fabricator, De Porceleyne Fles, could then set to work.

Ultimately, all parties were enthusiastic about the result, as is evident from a letter from De Porceleyne Fles to Vroom: ‘We all agree that this tableau will truly be a jewel on your home.’ The tiles were delivered and installed in the spring of 1960 and unveiled in the presence of Mr and Mrs Vroom, the architect Lau Peters and Escher. The tableau can still be seen on the villa on Dirk Schäferstraat.

The design drawings, photographs, letters and a few spare tiles can be seen in a specially designed display in the museum. Willem de Winter, appraiser from E.J. van Wisselingh & Co. and expert at Tussen Kunst & Kitsch, helped with the appraisal and is excited by this wonderful discovery: “The highlights of this exceptional gift are the drawings of the tableau. You rarely find drawings of this kind today. And although it is an unknown design by Escher, it is a recognisable image because of the characteristic fish and birds. What a find!”

 

As a curator at Escher in The Palace, I’m always looking for work by M.C. Escher to add to the collection. A small number of prints by Escher that we do not have in our collection have been on our wishlist for years. They are rare, however, and difficult to come by. Near the top of the list was Escher’s woodcut White Cat (1919), a tender image that Escher made of his pet while he was studying in Haarlem.

When, last December, we received the opportunity to acquire this piece, we did not hesitate for a moment. And it really seemed that fortune had smiled on us as, when we removed the print from its frame we found, to our great surprise, an unknown (but incomplete) text by Escher under the mount. It took some puzzling out, but we have now managed to reconstruct the majority of the text, which gives us a glimpse into the mind of the young artist, who was experimenting with the possibilities afforded by graphic techniques.

A furry friend

The white cat in the print symbolises Escher’s time as a young man in Haarlem. In 1919 Escher went to study at the School of Architecture and Decorative Arts. He moved to Haarlem, and took board and lodging at number 11 Zijlstraat. He shared his modest accommodation – consisting of a sitting room and a bedroom – with a white cat that was given to him by his landlady.

The cat became a favourite subject for Escher. He filled a sketchbook with drawings of his pet, and included her in three woodcuts. Twice, the cat was the main subject, while in the third she lies on the sitter’s lap. Escher’s fondness for his pet cat is apparent from the woodcut showing a frontal view of her with her eyes closed. From close up, it becomes clear how painstakingly he cut the fine hairs of the cat’s fur into the wooden block.

We know from his father’s diary that Escher was proud of the print. He took a copy to show his parents in Oosterbeek, and his friend and fellow student Henk Calkoen was also charmed by it. He wrote an article praising Escher’s woodcut for Eigen Haard magazine:

In the creative process, his artist’s intuition forged the harmony between form and content. […] The harmonious distribution of the white and black makes this woodcut fascinating from the very first glance. See the delicate curve in the strong but elegant line of the back; how beautifully the character of the diffident cat is presented, concentrated into a single, almost uninterrupted patch of white, itself so beautifully enclosed by the square. And at the same time we feel the artist coming to us through this artwork.

Counterproof

This version of White Cat is a counterproof, which makes it unique. A counterproof is a print of a print, so it is not a mirror-image of the picture on the wooden block or lithography stone. The technique allowed Escher to print the cat as he saw her. Several direct prints (not counterproofs, therefore) of White Cat are known to exist, in the collection of the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam and the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. A 1920 issue of Eigen Haard also has a direct print of the cat. Here, you can see that the monogram (the letters MCE which Escher incorporated into his prints) does not appear in mirror-image, as it does in the counterproof.

At the start of his career, especially, Escher often experimented with counterproofs. In 1935 he deliberately made a counterproof of a portrait of his father, explaining:

When portraying someone with highly asymmetrical features in a print, the likeness is largely lost in the proof, which is of course a mirror-image of the original work. I therefore made a ‘counterproof’ in this case, i.e. pressed the first print on paper against another piece of paper while the ink was still wet, cancelling out the mirror effect.

Making a counterproof of White Cat thus brought Escher closer to his own pet, as he later found with the portrait of his father. It is a personal approach that gives us a glimpse of Escher’s reality, and teaches us more about him as an artist and as a person

Discovering the text

Just how interested Escher was in the counterproof technique became clear when we removed the frame from White Cat. When our paper conservator removed the mount, we made an astonishing find: a text about the print written by M.C. Escher himself, hidden underneath. In the text, he explains why he made this particular counterproof. Unfortunately, parts of the text had been cut away or erased. This probably happened decades ago when the work was framed, as the text must have been regarded as less important than the image at the time. Over the past few months, we have been working with colleagues at Escher in The Palace and Kunstmuseum Den Haag to reconstruct the missing parts of the text, and we have now succeeded in making it readable. It has been reproduced at the bottom of the page.

Below the image on the left, Escher wrote ‘Voor Ruut, van Oom Mauk’ (To Ruut, from Uncle Mauk), evidence that he dedicated the counterproof to his nephew. Escher was known as Mauk to his family and close friends, and it was not unusual for him to give a print to a loved one as a gift. Uncle Mauk gave this particular one to Rudolf Escher, son of Berend Escher, M.C. Escher’s half-brother, who was influential in the development of Escher’s printmaking. Later, Rudolf Escher became a well-known composer, but he was still a child at the time of White Cat. This may have been why Escher regarded the print as an ideal gift for his young nephew.

Text on White Cat

The text discovered behind the mount, completed by a team from Escher in The Palace and Kunstmuseum Den Haag, is reproduced below. Most of the text on the paper was still legible, and the English translation is based on the Dutch as transcribed word for word. The words marked in grey had been cut away, so part of each sentence was omitted. The missing parts have been filled in, to make a readable whole. The sentence in yellow had been erased completely, and was no longer legible. We can only guess at what it said.

This M.C.E. is
not mistakenly
reversed. The
print is a counter-
proof, i.e.: a
print of a
print. In the wood
I cut the letters
in mirror writing,
so the print turns
out just right.
When the printing
ink is still wet, it is
however possible
using great
pressure (in the
etching press), to make
another print,
a counterproof, of it.
The counterproof is
thus the mirror-
image of the
print, and is therefore like
the piece of wood.
The advantage of
a counterproof over
a normal print is
that I, e.g. in[..
….] print just as
[I cut?] it. The mirror-image
generally gives a different impression, an
impression I did not intend – the
wrong one. The Pipa is also a counterproof.
The other three are direct prints.

Although this is a fairly factual text about the counterproof procedures, it has brought us a step closer to Escher. It also raises all kinds of questions. What was he thinking at the time? Why did he opt for a counterproof? And at what point in his life did this all happen? It gives us a glimpse of the mind of the young Escher, as he was just embarking on his career as an artist, and still developing his own unique style and technical skills in his formative years.