Escher in Het Paleis

Maurits Cornelis Escher trained as a graphic artist, spent years in Italy drawing landscapes, and after 1937 turned to the work everyone knows: tessellations that transform from birds into fish, staircases that climb forever, buildings that cannot exist, drawing hands that draw each other. Mathematicians and crystallographers took him seriously before art critics did. The museum holds a large permanent selection of the prints in the Lange Voorhout Palace, a house of 1760 that was Queen Emma's winter residence and later Queen Wilhelmina's working palace, so the impossible architecture hangs in eighteenth-century rooms - which works better than a neutral gallery would. Hans van Bentem's chandeliers, made for the museum and shaped as skulls, spiders, sharks and a Christmas tree, hang in each room. The top floor has optical illusion installations.

History

The Lange Voorhout Palace dates from the 18th century; Queen Emma bought it in 1896 and used it as her winter palace from March 1901 until her death in March 1934, and four later queens kept their offices here until Queen Beatrix moved hers to Noordeinde Palace. The Escher museum opened in the palace in November 2002 (Wikipedia, Escher in The Palace).

What to look for

• Impossible constructions - the staircases, waterfalls and buildings that cannot exist.
• Tessellations transforming - birds into fish, lizards into pattern, across the prints.
• A royal palace of 1760 - Queen Emma's winter house, holding the collection.
• Insect and skull chandeliers - Van Bentem's pieces hanging in each room.

When to go

All year. Two hours.

What to expect

The early Italian landscape work occupies a good part of the museum and is less what people come for. Closed some Mondays. It is a small palace and busy at weekends. Timed entry in peak season.

Nearby

The Binnenhof and Mauritshuis are a short walk south.

Key facts