Nov 03, 2022 - Sale 2620

Sale 2620 - Lot 485

Price Realized: $ 55,000
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 30,000 - $ 50,000
MAURITS C. ESCHER
Print Gallery.

Lithograph, 1956. 320x313 mm; 12 1/2x12 3/8 inches, full margins. Signed and numbered "31/55 III" in pencil, within the center of the image. A very good impression.

According to Bool, the composition for Print Gallery is based on Escher's (1878-1972) earlier color woodcut Senglea, 1935. "Bottom right, we see the entrance to a gallery where an exhibition of prints is being held. At the extreme left we see a young man who is looking at one of the prints on the wall. The print shows a ship, and further on, top left, the houses of Senglea [Malta] along the quay. If he allows his eyes to wander to the right, he can see the row of houses continuing to the right of the print. If he then lets his eyes wander down, he can see a house on a corner. At the bottom of this house he can see the entrance to a gallery where an exhibition of prints is being held; at the extreme left he can see a young man who is looking at one of the prints on the wall . . . thus the young man is himself in the print he is looking at!" Bool 410.