Escher Museum, Hague, Netherlands

The Escher Museum (Escher in the Palace) is a museum featuring the works of the Dutch graphical artist M. C. Escher. The museum is housed in a former palace Lange Voorhout Palace dating from the 18th century. Queen Emma (Emma of Waldeck Pyrmont) bought the stately house in 1896. She used it as a winter palace from March 1901 till her death in March 1934. Four Dutch Queens used the palace for their business offices, till Queen Beatrix moved the office to Paleis Noordeinde, about 10 minutes walk from Escher in Het Paleis. In all the former 'Royal Rooms' first and second floor there are window shades with information about the interior in Emma's time. There are two rooms dedicated to Emma's period and often there are photo enlargements or other information about Queen Mother Emma on display besides the never-ending Escher exhibition.

The museum features a permanent display of a large number of woodcuts and lithographs by Escher, among them the world famous prints Air and Water, Belvedere and Waterfall. Escher in Het Paleis shows the early lovely Italian landscapes, the many mirror prints and a choice from the tesselation drawings, further the three versions of the Metamorphosis, from the first small one to the third of 7 meters. This one is shown in a circle. It underlines the new vision of the museum on the work of M.C. Escher.

The third floor of the museum is dedicated to the Optical Illusion, besides the famous Escher Room in which grownups seem to be smaller than their children one's eyes will be tricked by multiple interactive dispays.

In the rooms of the museum are fifteen chandeliers made by the Rotterdam artist Hans van Bentem. The artist designed these especially for the museum, with some references to the work of Escher and the Palace. In the ballroom, a star chandelier is endlessly reflected in the two mirrors. In other rooms there are chandeliers such as a shark, a skull, spiders, and a sea horse.

References:

Wikipedia

Museums in Netherlands

User Reviews

Maureen Reene (14 months ago)
Excellent! Well worth a visit, we arrived at 4 with only one hour left before closing. Would have loved longer. Fantastic exhibit of this talented man's journey. Hands on activities on 3rd floor.

Irontallica Forever (14 months ago)
Amazing museum of an amazing man. Escher made extraordinary art that you have to look twice, sometimes thrice at to really see what's going on. Great museum for a quiet trip, although it's not a big one. You can spend about 3h here and then you'll have seen it all. The 3rd floor is nice to try things yourself. Not really a great museum for kids under 10 as sometimes you'd really have to understand it. There's also a few rooms with information about the palace itself

Bouke Groenescheij (14 months ago)
Very nice museum. It's an old Palace, nearby great streets in The Hague. Escher was an amazing artist and because of that the exhibition is not boring and fun for kids too! Highly recommend.

Malcolm Snelgrove (15 months ago)
Great to learn about Escher's early life, works and how he came to view the world and his art. The history of the Queen's mothers palace is also explained, and there is a puzzle hunt for kids. The top floor however is the real favourite for kids and adults alike with visual illusions and modern artists work in different media.

Philippe Veraart (2 years ago)
Very interesting to see his early work and how he started out and the link to his personal life. Pity some of his more famous works aren't on display, but still worth a visit. As an added bonus top floors houses interesting scientific exhibition showing mathematical principles and concepts of his work.

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Kroměříž stands on the site of an earlier ford across the River Morava. The gardens and castle of Kroměříž are an exceptionally complete and well-preserved example of a European Baroque princely residence and its gardens and described as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The first residence on the site was founded by bishop Stanislas Thurzo in 1497. The building was in a Late Gothic style, with a modicum of Renaissance detail. During the Thirty Years' War, the castle was sacked by the Swedish army (1643).

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UNESCO lists the palace and garden among the World Heritage Sites. As the nomination dossier explains, 'the castle is a good but not outstanding example of a type of aristocratic or princely residence that has survived widely in Europe. The Pleasure Garden, by contrast, is a very rare and largely intact example of a Baroque garden'. Apart from the formal parterres there is also a less formal nineteenth-century English garden, which sustained damage during floods in 1997.

Interiors of the palace were extensively used by Miloš Forman as a stand-in for Vienna's Hofburg Imperial Palace during filming of Amadeus (1984), based on the life of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, who actually never visited Kroměříž. The main audience chamber was also used in the film Immortal Beloved (1994), in the piano concerto scene.

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