Puzzle №053-Mosque

Wooden jigsaw puzzle #53 Mosque, 2020

Alberto Pasini, 1872

570pieces

61 whimsies

Here's what we can learn from the description of the painting on the website of the Metropolitan Museum:

Pasini here depicts the Yeni Valide Mosque at Eminonu, Istanbul, an Ottoman structure completed in the early eighteenth century. Four women of the Imperial Household enter the mosque by a gateway that Pasini appropriated from another, much later, monument. It was painted two decades after Pasini befriended the artist Théodore Chassériau after arriving in Paris in 1851. When Chassériau was unable to accompany a diplomatic mission to Persia in 1855, Pasini went instead; it was the first of his numerous visits to the East.

This picture made me associate with a number of heroes of old books, legends and poems of the Muslim East and its history. Among the whims of this puzzle, I have characters from Turkey, Arabia, Iran and Central Asia. 

Alexey Morozov, 2020

First, there are several stages of work on the puzzle. I made patterns of whims and pasted them temporarily on the surface of the workpiece.

 Then I sanded the back side (not all the creators of wooden jigsaw puzzles care about this) and painted the characters with stain in several shades (and this is not done by anyone except me, as far as I know). This is how the puzzle looks in finished form:

The reverse side of the puzzle with whimsies painted with stain in several shades

Scheherazade and the Sultan

1. Scheherazade and the Sultan

2. Persian nobleman

3. Angels carry a crown for the hero

4. Gazelle

5. Antelope

6. Genie from aladin's lamp

7. Ornament

8. Bactrian camel, lives in Mongolia and Central Asia

9. The old wizard on the flying carpet

10, 11. Birds

13. The hero and his horse

14. Farhad carries his beloved Shirin along with a horse (heroes of the poem by the Uzbek poet Alisher Navoi)

15. An old woman by the hearth

16. Sage on a donkey

17. Arab in the window

18. Princess Shirin has taken off her Amazon outfit and is bathing in a stream. At this time, Khosrov saw and fell in love with her (heroes of the poem by the Iranian poet Nizami)

19. Shirins horse

20. Shirins weapons and armor

21, 22, 23. Musicians at the feast

24. Musician Janissary

25. Shah Tahmasp

26. Oriental Dancer

27, 28. Belly dance

29. A woman carrying a heavy jug

30. Elder resting on pillows

31. Sage with a telescope

32. Scientist with a globe and a book

33. Compasses

34. Ali Baba came to his rich brother for a measuring vessel

35. Ornament

36. Peacock

37. Persian poet and philosopher Saadi

38. Poet Saadi

39. Hookah

40. Girl with Wine

41. An old woman complains to Sultan Sanjar (from Hamsa of Nizaimi)

42. Khoja Nasreddin, sage, merry rogue and vagabond

43. Sleeping Guard

44. Loot Rogue

All East whimsies

Counting parts

The puzzle is packed in a box and ready for shipping

The puzzle is packed in a box and ready for shipping