Samuel Jessurun de Mesquita - Zittende Pierrot

Samuel Jessurun de Mesquita was a Dutch graphic artist active in the years before the Second World War. His pupils included graphic artist M. C. Escher. With Nazi Germany's invasion of the Netherlands in May 1940, de Mesquita, already in poor health, was forced to lead a secluded life, limiting his work largely to sketches. A Sephardic Jew, in his old age he was sent to Auschwitz by the Nazis, where he was gassed along with his wife. After the war, de Mesquita was largely forgotten.