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Here we tap into dates from M.C. Eschers life and work, jumping through time but always in the now. All year round you can enjoy background stories, anecdotes and trivia about this fascinating artist.
3 October 2026
A striking feature of the interior of Lange Voorhout Palace is the large number of chimneypieces it contains. In 2025–2026, Jan van ’t Hof, a specialist in architectural history at the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands (RCE), conducted research into the chimneypieces and their history. This research was facilitated by Escher in The Palace; you can read the preliminary findings in this Escher Today.
22 August 2026
The work of M.C. Escher is well-known worldwide. Particularly for his optical illusions, such as Belvedere (1958) and Ascending and Descending (1960). However, what also defines Escher’s work are the numerous tessellations he created
4 July 2026
Painting apprentice Huug Vooys was 19 when he was invited to take part in an exceptionally special project: a mural no less than 48 metres long in the main PTT building, the post office on Kerkplein in The Hague. The design was by none other than M.C. Escher, who himself noted that he had possibly received "a most delightful commission" from the PTT. The large work was realised, but Escher did not execute the design himself - the honour fell to Huug Vooys.
20 May 2026
Escher’s fascination with the possibilities of perspective is already evident in his early prints. In these works, he combines the rules of classical perspective with an extreme vantage point. Later, he began to experiment more and used the rules of perspective to mislead viewers. In these works, the perspective lines are straight, but Escher realised that, in actuality, a curved line corresponds more closely to what our eyes see. In Up and Down, he achieves perfection in the application of curved perspective.
31 January 2026
There has always been great interest worldwide in M. C. Escher's work. Articles about him and his art often speak of 'optical illusions’ and his work is almost automatically associated with that term. Understandable, even though the relationship between optical illusions and Escher's work differs from how optical illusions are generally explained.
3 January 2026
2025 has come to an end, and it has been another special and unforgettable year. These days, we are looking back on all the wonderful exhibitions and programmes we have had the privilege of organising. All the images we shared this year can be found in this special end-of-year animation. We thank everyone for their support over the past year and hope to inspire you again in 2026 with our stories and images!
20 December 2025
A special parquet floor has always been in the Ballroom of Lange Voorhout Palace. However, it was not always the one that is currently laid there, designed by American minimalist artist Donald Judd (1928-1994).
22 November 2025
In 2025, Escher in The Palace and Kunstmuseum Den Haag were able to enrich their collection with a personal work by M.C. Escher: the tile tableau Fish and Birds from 1960, which hung in Escher's studio for many years.
18 October 2025
Doris Schattschneider, Escher expert and retired professor of mathematics, was a guest speaker at the annual Bridges mathematics conference. This year, the conference was held in Eindhoven in July. She presented her research into Escher's design for wrapping paper for the Bijenkorf department store, for which Escher turned to his hobby of what he called "word-puzzles".
7 August 2025
During his lifetime, M.C. Escher received several letters from enthusiasts sharing their admiration for his work. Not all of these have survived, which makes it very special when relatives lend such letters to a museum. The granddaughter of Hendrik Dekker temporarily loans his carefully written letter about the print Reptiles (1943) and Escher's reaction to it to Escher in The Palace. The handwritten correspondence will be on display from 18 March to 14 September 2025.
3 July 2025
For years, M.C. Escher lived in Rome, but he did not like to depict the city itself in his prints. Escher found Rome more beautiful by night, which led him in 1934 to make a large series of woodcuts and drawings entitled Nocturnal Rome. During this period, he also drew the Basilica Santi Giovanni e Paolo. The drawing led to a lithograph only two years later: S.S. Giovanni e Paolo (1936). Ten years later, he returned to the subject with his first mezzotint: Dusk (1946). At first glance, the lithograph and the mezzotint seem almost identical, but they certainly are not.
27 May 2025
How to depict infinity on paper was something that fascinated both M.C. Escher and Albert E. Bosman. Albert Bosman (1891-1961) was an engineer and maths teacher who also became an artist. Mathematics lay at the core of his work. Bosman and Escher were neighbours in Baarn (NL), where they bonded over a mutual interest in mathematical shapes, ideas and principles. The two artists made abstract principles visually accessible to a wider audience. For the first time, their work is being shown side by side in M.C. Escher & Albert E. Bosman: A Mathematical Connection. Bosman’s best-known creation, the Pythagoras Tree, and the other drawings based on it are on show in this small but fascinating presentation from 21 February until 15 June 2025 at Escher in The Palace.
