Still Life with Spherical Mirror is a lithography print by the Dutch

Netherlands

The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

 artist M. C. Escher

M. C. Escher

Maurits Cornelis Escher , usually referred to as M. C. Escher , was a Dutch graphic artist. He is known for his often mathematically inspired woodcuts, lithographs, and mezzotints...

 which was first printed in November, 1934. It depicts a setting with rounded bottle and a metal sculpture of a bird with a human face seated atop a newspaper and a book. The background is dark but in the bottle can be seen the reflection of Escher’s studio and Escher himself sketching the scene.

Self portraits in reflective spherical surfaces can be found in Escher’s early ink drawings and in his prints as late as the 1950s. The metal bird/human sculpture is real and was given to Escher by his father-in-law. This sculpture appears again in Escher’s later prints Another World Mezzotint (Other World Gallery) (1946) and Another World (1947).

Sources

• Locher, J.L. (2000). The Magic of M. C. Escher. Harry N. Abrams, Inc. ISBN 0-8109-6720-0.