Hand with Reflecting Sphere

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Hand with Reflecting Sphere
M. C. Escher, 1935
Lithograph, 31.8 × 21.3 cm

Hand with Reflecting Sphere also known as Self-Portrait in Spherical Mirror is a lithograph print by Dutch artist M. C. Escher, first printed in January 1935. The piece depicts a hand holding a reflective sphere. In the reflection, the hand holding the sphere is revealed to be Escher’s. It can be seen that the hand holding the sphere is a left hand, but the reflection reveals that it is his right hand.

Self portraits in reflective, spherical surfaces are common in Escher’s work, and this image is the most prominent and famous example. In much of his self portraiture of this type, Escher is in the act of drawing the sphere, whereas in this image he is seated and gazing into the sphere. On the walls there are several framed pictures, one of which appears to be of an Indonesian shadow puppet.

[edit] Popular culture

In the movie Labyrinth (which also references another Escher work, Relativity), Jareth, the Goblin King, offers Sarah a crystal (which magically appears in his hand) and says 'If you turn it this way, look into it, it will show you your dreams'. The mirror property of crystals in Labyrinth is most clearly seen during the ballroom scene, when Sarah is trapped in her dreamlike fantasy and runs to the wall, which looks like a huge mirror and shows her a distorted reflection.

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