Escher in the Palace

Escher in Het Paleis is a museum of the famous Dutch cartoonist, graphic artist and painter Maurits Cornelis Escher (1898-1972). The artist known all over the world created surprising, illusory compositions - including looped stairs, which always moves uphill, or geometric compositions depicting different characters, depending on the way you look.

The museum opened in 2002 is housed in the former Queen Emma Winter Palace. Exhibited here is the world's largest collection of Escher's works - from his youth, from the Italian period and from the last decades of his life. They are complemented by photographs from the artist's family archive.

The end of each tour is watching the monumental woodcut "Metamorphosis III" (1967/1968) located on the top floor of the museum. The 19 cm high and 680 cm long tape shows the transformations of the chessboard motif - it evolves into the shapes of birds, sailboats and houses to return in waves to the pure geometry of black and white fields.