Jigsaw 17, Series 3

As advertised at reference 1, the ambassadors was completed yesterday afternoon and snapped along with John North's book of the jigsaw. About five days' worth. I think the fourth time that I have done this particular puzzle, with the first occasion, back in 2013, noticed at reference 2. While I am reminded by reference 3 that the picture we know and love now is almost as much the product of the art of the conservator as that of Holbein.

On this occasion, I wondered whether the chap on the right, the cleric, chafed at having to wear sober, muted clothes. Expense was permitted, but not ostentation. But did he secretly hanker after dressing up like the dandy on the left? Did he do exactly that in the privacy of his private apartments? With perhaps just his lady friend on hand to clap?

On this occasion also, for the first time, I embarked on the skull bottom centre before I finished the border, although that did come shortly after. Then most of the tiled floor, then the fur trim and purple shirt left, then the central carpet and then the aristocratic toys. I wondered about the expense of both the fancy clothes and the fancy toys, which must have represented the wages of years and years of agricultural labour, the lot of the vast majority of the population of the time. What about a bit of levelling down?

This left two lakes of green, the large one above and the small one in the middle. And two lakes of brown or black, the large one right and the small one left. I tackled the latter two first, and soon realised that I would get on better if I sorted the relevant pieces by shape, which had not proved necessary with the previous two puzzles. Then deciding that it was better still if they were all orientated - with respect to the pattern of prongs and holes - the same way.

After that, the process was to fill the in the two lakes, working from the outside in. In this case there were plenty of the two hole then two prong pieces and the corners between the two prongs had distinctive shapes which were fairly easy to pick out of the pile. And once one got to the point where every piece in the pile had to fit some piece which had already been placed, it was easy.

The small green lake was slightly darker, and so easy enough. But the large green lake contained mostly regular pieces - hole, prong, hole, prong - which mostly had undistinguished shapes and colours. Which made for a lot of trial and error.

I found rotating the pieces in the mind to test there for a fit quite difficult, slower than actually attempting to place them on the board. Perhaps that skill will come back with practise.

Next up the Foppa? Not yet counted how many times it has been done already, but I do know where it is. With thanks to the National Gallery for the use of their snap.

PS 1: hitherto, snaps in posts have been indexed by a pictorial key along the bottom of the screen, a key which today seems to have vanished. On the other hand, rotating the wheel on my mouse does scroll me back and forth over the snaps. Have the chaps at Google been fiddling with the templates again? Something that they seem to do from time to time.

PS 2: maybe a about time I got back to the National Gallery. I don't remember when I last visited, although a cursory search turns up a visit in the summer of 2019, noticed at reference 4. After that, rather to my surprise, several visits to the National Portrait Gallery, but none to the National Gallery.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/01/jigsaw-16-series-3.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv2.blogspot.com/2013/02/jigsaw-8-series-2.html.

Reference 3: https://psmv2.blogspot.com/2013/12/jigsaw-1-series-3.html.

Reference 4: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/06/room-55.html.

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