An interesting picture although I found the crowd scene at the bottom unconvincing. The perspective does not seem quite right, possibly because the master has played fast and loose with the vérité on the ground, at least according to the technical notes on the National Gallery website. He also stooped to the use of compasses to get his roundels round, with the holes left by the compass clearly visible when up close and personal.
I then pondered about the use of what we would now call old masters as items of display, just about visible below the awnings, to advertise the wealth and power of whoever it was organising the celebration. No prosing about the quattrocento here thank you very much. And then poking around on the web, I find that the church they are coming out of is the dingy building on the right, whereas the grand building opposite is the home of a charity, not all that unlike some modern charities in that all the dosh seems to go on fancies for the trustees, rather than on the starving millions. See http://www.scuolagrandesanrocco.it/ for a rather stunning shot of the interior.
Started with the edge then did the sky line. Then tackled the various strong horizontals: the awning and the ledges surmounting the two rows of windows. Did not actually finish any of them until much later but they provided an admirable spring board for spreading out. Building, then crowd, then sky. This last helped along by sorting.
For once in a while, only the second occasion in what must be more than 30 jigsaws now, there was one piece missing, the hole more or less in the centre of the image, and a chain of three pieces next to the hole duplicated. Now this is not the sort of thing that is going to happen while doing the jigsaw at home. But then I observe that the cutting is not very clean, so maybe what has happened is that the cut jigsaws were not coming cleanly away from the cutter. With the missing piece left behind for the jigsaw next and the duplicated pieces left behind from the jigsaw previous.
Having knocked this off, did a round of Horton Lane, anti clockwise, for the first time for a while. Rewarded by three tweets along Longmead Road. A small egret (although I failed to notice the yellow feet and the crests), a sphere of mistletoe and a treasury tag, size two and a half inches. Who on earth among the denizens of the Longmead Road would want such a thing as this last? Or had it escaped from a visiting waste transfer vehicle?
PS: I wonder how you feel if a year ago you sold HP a parcel for £10b which they have now decided is actually worth £5b. Do you feel ashamed of having ripped them off? Do you feel clever for having ripped them off? Do you sue them for defamation of character? I think, one way or another, I would feel a bit uncomfortable. Retirement a bit tainted. But then it was never likely that I was ever going to be in this sort of position, so maybe what I might or might not have felt is not very much to any point. But I should add that I type on an HP Pavilion Slimline PC with which I have been very satisfied. Perhaps they should have stuck to them and printer ink and not messed with this clever stuff from Cambridge.
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