House of Stairs

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House of Stairs

M. C. Escher, 1951

lithograph, 47.2 × 23.8 cm

For other works entitled House of Stairs, see House of Stairs (disambiguation).

House of Stairs is a lithograph print by the Dutch artist M. C. Escher which was first printed in November, 1951.

This print measures 18 5/8 x 9 3/8”. It depicts the interior of a tall structure crisscrossed with stairs and doorways at paradoxical angles. 46 Wentelteefjes (imaginary creatures created by Escher) are crawling on the stairs.

The wentelteefje has a long, armored body with six legs, humanoid feet, a parrot-like beak and eyes on stalks. Some are seen to roll in through doors, wound in a wheel shape and then unroll to crawl up the stairs, while others crawl down stairs and wind up to roll out.

The wentelteefje first appeared earlier the same month in the lithograph Curl-up. Later that month, House of Stairs was extended to a vertical length of 55 1/2” in a print titled House of Stairs II by repeating and mirroring some of the architecture and creatures.

The basic structure of the stairs and platforms is modeled on the Penrose triangle, or "impossible triangle", which has parallels with higher-dimensional analogs of the Möbius strip.