This website uses cookies

We use cookies and similar technologies on this website to analyze visits and to show you relevant messages on social media. By clicking 'Accept all' you give permission for their placement and for the processing of personal data obtained in this way, as stated in our privacy & cookie statement.

Our privacy & cookie statement:

Order tickets
Mummified priests in Gangi
Escher Today
22 April 2017

Mummified priests in Gangi

On 22 April 1932 Maurits Escher leaves for Italy, together with his friend and painter Giuseppe Haas-Triverio. Their destination: Sicily. In Gangi, the duo is approached by a couple of street urchins, who ask them if they would like to see any dead priests. *

M.C. Escher, Gemummificeerde priesters in Gangi, Sicilië, litho, juni 1932

M.C. Escher, Gemummificeerde priesters in Gangi, Sicilië, litho, juni 1932

A large key was produced and, surrounded by a gang of shouting boys, Maurits and Giuseppe descend into the crypt of the Madre Church. Almost all the walls are pockmarked by rows of niches containing mummies. Escher took some photos and created this lithograph as soon as he got back home.

Page from Escher's photo album from 1932, with a note about the approx. 100 mummified priests in the catacombs of the Madre church in Gangi, 12 May 1932

Page from Escher's photo album from 1932, with a note about the approx. 100 mummified priests in the catacombs of the Madre church in Gangi, 12 May 1932

Giuseppe Haas-Triverio, surrounded by street urchins in Gangi

Giuseppe Haas-Triverio, surrounded by street urchins in Gangi

Some of the mummified priests

Some of the mummified priests

Map is loading...

Source 

[*] M.C. Escher, His Life and Complete Graphic Work, edited by J.L. Locher, Abradale Press, 1982, page 36

Erik Kersten

Erik Kersten

Editor

Share:

More Escher today

Sun and Moon

Sun and Moon

Birds are a regularly recurring subject in Escher’s work, mostly in one of his many tessellations. Sun and Moon, a woodcut from April 1948, is one of them. But there is something special about this one.
Read more
Tetrahedral Planetoid

Tetrahedral Planetoid

Around 1946 Escher became fascinated by mathematical spatial figures. He was captivated by the regularity and necessity of these shapes, which are mysterious and quite unfathomable to humans. He was stimulated in this by his brother, geologist and professor Berend George Escher, who gave him a copy of his standard work 'Algemene Mineralogie en Kristallographie' (1935). Escher drew on this fascination to create both very small worlds (crystals) and very large ones (stars and planets). One of the most beautiful planets is Tetrahedral Planetoid, from April 1954.
Read more
San Gimignano 1923

San Gimignano 1923

In the months of April to June 1922, Escher makes a trip to Italy, followed by a journey to Spain by cargo boat in the autumn. His hunger for travel remains yet unsatisfied, and in November he visits Italy for a second time. First Genoa and Pisa and on 15 November he is back in Siena. He is delighted by the light blue sky over the hills of Tuscany. He is happy.
Read more