She cut two owls into a woodblock in 1921, then died three years later at forty-six. A century on, the copyright expired — and the owls belong to everyone.
The short version
- Julie de Graag died in 1924. Her work is in the public domain in the United States and across the European Union. You can print it, sell it, and put it on a tea towel.
- The Rijksmuseum holds the deepest collection and releases high-resolution scans without restriction. Go to the source, not to an aggregator.
- The subjects are uncanny for a vintage shop: owls, cats, mushrooms, a spider in its web, a skull labeled memento mori.
- The full catalog sits below — ninety-seven works, every one linked to its museum record.
Julie de Graag, Twee uilen (Two owls), 1921. Woodcut on paper, 262 × 196 mm. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (RP-P-1935-920). Public domain.
A short life, cut in wood
Anna Julia de Graag was born in Gorinchem on July 18, 1877, the fourth of six children, to a mother who painted seriously as an amateur. The family moved to The Hague, where she trained at the Royal Academy of Art. There she came into the orbit of Henk Bremmer, the critic and teacher whose taste shaped a generation of Dutch collecting. He championed her. Her work found its way into the Kröller-Müller and other major collections largely because he put it there.
In 1904 she moved to Laren, and the style everyone now recognizes arrived with the move. Under the influence of the sculptor Joseph Mendes da Costa and the painter Bart van der Leck, the fussiness fell away. What remained was a shape, an outline, and a decision about where the black goes.
At the turn of 1908 her studio burned. Nearly all her early work went with it, along with her woodblocks and her cutting tools, and she painted for a while because she had no other choice. She came back to the block. The prints that survive — the ones on your screen, the ones in the Rijksmuseum's cases — are almost entirely the work of the years after the fire.
She died in The Hague on February 2, 1924, by her own hand, at forty-six. Museum Escher in The Palace mounted a retrospective in the winter of 2024–25, with the stated aim of finally giving her the recognition she was owed. It is worth noting that she was twenty-one years older than Escher, and that she got to the clean, flat, graphic line well before he did.
Why the work reads so well on a printed object
Woodcut is a subtractive medium and an unforgiving one. Every line is a decision made with a gouge, and nothing can be softened afterward. De Graag worked in flat black with, at most, one muted color dropped in behind. The museum records name the second block on each sheet, and the list is a palette in itself: black and orange under a sitting cat, black and brown for the spider, black and green for the grasshopper, black and pink for the rose, black and grey for a winter evening.
That constraint is exactly why the images survive reproduction. There is no tonal gradient to muddy, no fine detail to clog. A de Graag owl printed on cotton canvas at eight inches looks like a de Graag owl. An oil painting at the same size looks like a photograph of an oil painting, which is a different and worse thing.
Julie de Graag, Zittende kat (Sitting cat). Woodcut in black and orange, printed from two blocks, 190 × 155 mm. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (RP-P-1935-901). Public domain. Note how little is actually drawn — the cat is mostly the paper it sits on.
The rights, plainly
Copyright in most of the world runs for the life of the author plus seventy years. De Graag died in 1924; the term ran out at the end of 1994. In the United States, everything published before 1930 is public domain regardless of the author. Both roads lead to the same place: nobody owns these images, and nobody can grant or withhold permission to use them.
The scan is a separate question from the artwork, and it is the one that trips people up. A museum can, in principle, claim rights in its photograph of a public-domain object. The Rijksmuseum has explicitly declined to, releasing its collection images for any use, commercial included. That is why it is the right source. Aggregator sites that host the same images under a CC0 label often attach their own terms of service on top — usually restricting resale of their files as standalone digital downloads, which is fine for a mug and murky for a print pack.
Keep a provenance file
Print-on-demand platforms run automated copyright screening, and a hundred-year-old Dutch woodcut will occasionally get flagged. Save a spreadsheet with the object number, the artist's death date, and the museum link for every image you use. A takedown gets reversed in one reply instead of one week.
The catalog
Ninety-seven distinct works by de Graag survive in the Rijksmuseum, across 169 sheets. Every title below links to its museum record, where the object data sits and the original scan can be downloaded. The Dutch title is given alongside because that is what the museum catalogs under, and searching the English will find you nothing.
Reading the object numbers
The family gave the work in tranches — M. J. de Graag in 1927, G. A. de Graag in 1935, later heirs in 1941, 1943, 1955 and 1994 — so most blocks survive as two or three impressions under different numbers. Zonnebloem exists four times over, Muis four, the Indisch beeldje drawings five. The linked number is the earliest; the count follows it. A number beginning RP-P is a print, RP-T a drawing, RP-D a design or block.
One omission: the 1892–94 academy sheets — caricature heads, anatomical fragments, a study titled Vertical line — are real biography and no use whatsoever on a tea towel.
Cats and owls
| Title | Dutch title | Object number |
|---|---|---|
| Two owls | Twee uilen | RP-P-1935-920 |
| Sitting cat | Zittende kat | RP-P-1935-886 · 3 impressions |
| Sitting cat, eyes closed | Zittende kat met gesloten ogen | RP-P-1927-379 · 2 impressions |
| Washing cat | Zich wassende kat | RP-P-1927-352 · 2 impressions |
| Sleeping cat | Slapende kat | RP-P-1935-902 |
| Three cats | Drie katten | RP-P-1935-885 |
| December | December | RP-P-1927-375 · 3 impressions |
Other animals
| Title | Dutch title | Object number |
|---|---|---|
| Dog | Hond | RP-P-1935-890 |
| Dog's head | Hondenkop | RP-P-1935-933 · 2 impressions |
| Rabbit | Konijn | RP-P-1927-383 · 2 impressions |
| Two rabbits | Twee konijnen | RP-P-1927-385 · 2 impressions |
| Lying rabbit | Liggend konijn | RP-P-1935-889 |
| Sitting rabbit | Zittend konijn | RP-P-1927-347 · 3 impressions |
| Duck | Eend | RP-P-1927-384 · 2 impressions |
| Two ducks | Twee eenden | RP-P-1927-381 · 2 impressions |
| Two ducklings | Twee eendenkuikens | RP-P-1927-387 · 2 impressions |
| Swimming duck | Zwemmende eend | RP-P-1927-386 · 2 impressions |
| Rooster | Haan | RP-P-1927-359 · 2 impressions |
| Macaw | Ara | RP-P-1935-921 · 3 impressions |
| Dead bird | Dood vogeltje | RP-P-1927-377 · 2 impressions |
| Mouse | Muis | RP-P-1927-353 · 4 impressions |
| Sitting mouse | Zittende muis | RP-P-1935-896 |
| Pig | Varken | RP-P-1927-382 · 2 impressions |
| Turtle | Schildpad | RP-P-1935-867 |
| Swimming frog | Zwemmende kikker | RP-P-1927-365 · 2 impressions |
| Akbar, Max and Poes — her tortoise, dog and cat | Akbar, Max, Poes | RP-P-1927-368 · 3 impressions |
Insects, shells and oddities
| Title | Dutch title | Object number |
|---|---|---|
| Spider in a web | Spin in een web | RP-P-1935-907 |
| Grasshopper | Sprinkhaan | RP-P-1927-348 · 3 impressions |
| Butterfly | Vlinder | RP-P-1927-363 · 2 impressions |
| Butterfly, rooster and foliage | Vlinder, haan en bladwerk | RP-P-1935-971 · the original block survives as RP-D-1979-79(R) |
| Three slugs on a cabbage | Drie naaktslakken op een kool | RP-P-1935-869 · 3 impressions |
| Two crayfish | Twee rivierkreeften | RP-P-1935-868 |
| Shell | Schelp | RP-P-1935-919 |
| Shell on a table | Schelp op tafel | RP-D-1980-54 · 3 drawings |
| Memento mori | Memento mori | RP-P-1927-378 · 2 impressions |
Mushrooms
| Title | Dutch title | Object number |
|---|---|---|
| Dripping mushroom | Druipende paddenstoel | RP-P-1935-888 · 2 impressions |
| Ink caps | Inktzwammen | RP-P-1935-873 · 3 impressions |
| September | September | RP-P-1935-893 |
| October | October | RP-P-1927-374 · 2 impressions |
Flowers and plants
| Title | Dutch title | Object number |
|---|---|---|
| Sunflower | Zonnebloem | RP-P-1927-358 · 4 impressions |
| Geranium | Geranium | RP-P-1994-275 |
| Cyclamen | Cyclamen | RP-P-1927-366 · 2 impressions |
| Dahlia | Dahlia | RP-P-1935-931 · 2 impressions |
| Godetia | Godetia | RP-P-1927-367 · 2 impressions |
| Violet | Viool | RP-P-1927-369 · 4 impressions |
| Flower | Bloem | RP-P-1935-930 · 2 impressions |
| Rose bush | Rozenstruik | RP-P-1935-916 · 2 impressions |
| Vase with flowers | Vaas met bloemen | RP-P-1935-887 |
| Blossoming plants | Bloeiende planten | RP-P-1927-356 · 2 impressions |
| Ferns | Varens | RP-P-1927-380 · 2 impressions |
| Foliage | Bladwerk | RP-P-1927-362 |
| Bare tree | Kale boom | RP-P-1927-371 · 2 impressions |
| Chestnut branch | Kastanjetak | RP-P-1935-913 |
| Nasturtium | Oost-Indische kers | RP-P-1935-903 · 2 impressions |
| Cauliflower | Bloemkool | RP-P-1935-870 |
The calendar sheets
She cut a set of month blocks across 1917 and 1918. Nine survive; February, July and August appear to be lost. The titles do not describe the subjects, which is how they get misfiled — May is a bird's nest with five eggs, June a single rose in black and pink, September a mushroom, December a cat. The stylized rosette frequently labeled May is a different object again, a calendar design catalogued as RP-T-1954-511.
| Title | Dutch title | Object number |
|---|---|---|
| January | Januari | RP-P-1935-904 |
| March | Maart | RP-P-1927-370 · 2 impressions |
| April | April | RP-P-1935-905 |
| May | Mei | RP-P-1935-910 |
| June | Juni | RP-P-1927-373 · 2 impressions |
| September | September | RP-P-1935-893 |
| October | October | RP-P-1927-374 · 2 impressions |
| November | November | RP-P-1927-350 · 3 impressions |
| December | December | RP-P-1927-375 · 3 impressions |
Ornament and ex libris
| Title | Dutch title | Object number |
|---|---|---|
| Ornament | Ornament | RP-P-1935-865 |
| Ex libris design with a hedgehog | Ontwerp voor ex libris met egel voor C. W. ter Kuile | RP-T-1927-156 |
| Rosette of stylized leaves | De maand Mei: rozet met gestileerde bladen | RP-T-1954-511 · tiles seamlessly |
Landscape and still life
| Title | Dutch title | Object number |
|---|---|---|
| Moonlit night | Maannacht | RP-P-1935-926 |
| Winter | Winter | RP-P-1935-925 |
| Winter evening | Winteravond | RP-P-1927-372 · 2 impressions |
| Farm in the snow | Boerderij in de sneeuw | RP-P-1935-911 |
| Thatched farmhouse | Boerderij met rieten dak | RP-P-1935-935 |
| Pair of shoes | Paar schoenen | RP-P-1935-922 · 3 impressions |
| Still life with can and ashtray | Stilleven met kan en asbak | RP-P-1927-361 · 2 impressions |
| Still life with jug and onion | Stilleven met kruik en ui | RP-P-1927-360 · 3 impressions |
| Indian figurine on a table | Indisch beeldje op tafel | RP-D-1980-49 · 5 drawings |
Portraits
| Title | Dutch title | Object number |
|---|---|---|
| Portrait of H. P. Bremmer | Portret van Hendricus Petrus Bremmer | RP-P-1927-357 · 3 impressions |
| Portrait of Geertje Kuijer | Portret van Geertje Kuijer | RP-P-1935-879 · 2 impressions |
| Portrait of Dina Klaver | Portret van Dina Klaver | RP-P-1935-881 |
| Portrait of Ineke Broekman | Portret van Ineke Broekman | RP-P-1935-877 |
| Portrait of Lijs Bus | Portret van Lijs Bus | RP-P-1935-878 |
| Portrait of an unknown man | Portret van een onbekende man | RP-P-1935-872 |
Narrative scenes
Six sheets tell small domestic stories rather than showing a single subject: a boy and girl with a sack, the same pair showing it to their father, two boys and a donkey, a woman and girl laying a table. Almost certainly book or magazine illustration, and the only place in her mature work where anything resembling a plot appears. Object numbers RP-P-1935-972 through RP-P-1935-977, plus RP-P-1927-355.
Not everything is in Amsterdam
Her work is also held by the Kröller-Müller in Otterlo, the Centraal Museum in Utrecht, the Gemeentemuseum in The Hague, Museum Arnhem, the Drents Museum, and Boijmans Van Beuningen. Papegaai op stok (Parrot on a perch, 1914) and the 1919 Muisje are Kröller-Müller pieces, not Rijksmuseum ones — worth checking before you cite a source.
What we are making
A small run built on these blocks is in the works — the owls, one of the cats, the dripping mushroom, and the 1918 rosette.
Coming soon. We will link the collection here the moment it is live.
A note on borrowing well
Public domain means you may. It does not mean you should do it carelessly. The difference between a shop that prints old art and a shop worth buying from is whether the artist's name appears anywhere on the product. Ours will. She has been obscure for a century, and a line of type on a hangtag costs nothing.
Hunting a specific piece? Prowl searches seventeen vintage marketplaces at once — useful when you know exactly what you want and it only surfaces twice a year.
Open ProwlSources
- Museum Escher in The Palace, artist page and 2024–25 exhibition materials — biography, Bremmer circle, the 1908 studio fire
- Rijksmuseum collection, Julie de Graag — object records, numbers, dimensions, ink colors, and the museum's open image policy
- Wikimedia Commons, Prints by Julie de Graag in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam — 169 files, each named with its object number; the source of the concordance above
- Huygens Institute, Digitaal Vrouwenlexicon van Nederland — the other collections holding her work
- Julie de Graag, Twee uilen (Two owls), 1921, woodcut on paper, 262 × 196 mm. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, object RP-P-1935-920, gift of G. A. de Graag, 1935. Public Domain Mark 1.0. Image courtesy of the Rijksmuseum — id.rijksmuseum.nl/200284811
- Julie de Graag, Zittende kat (Sitting cat), woodcut in black and orange, 190 × 155 mm. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, object RP-P-1935-901, gift of G. A. de Graag. Public domain. Image courtesy of the Rijksmuseum
- 17 U.S.C. §§ 302–305 and EU Directive 2006/116/EC — copyright terms cited above
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