?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 6,000 - $ 9,000
MAURITS C. ESCHER Cattolica of Stilo, Calabria.
Lithograph, 1930. 226x300 mm; 9x11 3/4 inches, full margins. Signed, numbered 4/40 and inscribed in pencil, lower margin. A very good impression of this extremely scarce lithograph.
According to Bool, when Escher traveled to Calabria, Italy, from April 28 to May 25, 1930, during which time he drew the current view, he was accompanied by a fellow artist friend, Roberto Schiess, who brought with him a zither to entertain the local people, and Jean Roussert, a young French historian, who dragged along with him a large camera. From Rome they took the train to Pizzo and followed the coast south, Bool continues, "As soon as they left the main road and entered the impoverished inland districts, they had to use mule tracks or dried-up river beds [to traverse the land]. From Pizzo they went via Tropea and Scilla to the southernmost tip of Calabria, Mélito. Here the trip began in earnest with a long walk along a river-bed to reach Pentedattilo, where they spent a few days. The first day Escher began drawing there, a praying mantis jumped onto his folder and stayed there immobile for such a long time that he was able to use it as a model. Five years later this praying mantis found an appropriate place in the wood engraving Dream. Bool 139.
