This Ravensburger puzzle continues to be a pleasure to solve, although for puzzle purposes I prefer the Garafalo picture (see 23rd April for its last solution), which is more of a challenge, Ravensburger quality notwithstanding. Solved in pretty much the same order as last time, with the only significant variation being leaving the dark, lower part of the left hand figure until last and the central column of the right hand figure immediately before that. Sorting was very helpful in solving the green part and the two dark parts of the puzzle and I was quite often able to just pick the right piece out of the lines, without the need for trial and error. Ravensburger cutting is good for this sort of thing. Solution ended with the discovery of an alien piece, probably left over from careless putting away of Jigsaw 6. Put aside in the possibly fond hope that I will remember about it when I next tackle Garafalo - presently being embarked on another go at the Ambassadors.
My only comment on the picture is that the right hand face seemed rather dull compared with the left hand face, probably the result of the right hand face being given appropriate clerical passivity and the left hand face belonging to the chap who paid for the painting. The left hand chap was also in better position to give time to sittings, being resident in England at the relevant time, unlike his clerical friend who was just visiting.
Puzzle solution proceeded in parallel with reading one book about the painting, by Mary Frederica Sophia Hervey, and dipping into another, by John North, with both being bought from Amazon blind, not something that I do very often.
The first book told me a lot about who the two ambassadors were and how they fitted into the complicated European scene at the time of the breaking away of the northern half of the Catholic church from the southern half. The left hand ambassador, for example, was an honoured guest at the coronation of Anne Boleyn, which I learned Henry VIII did not himself attend. He also took the precaution of importing 30 tuns of claret, presumably having heard bad reports of the stuff more usually drunk here. The right hand ambassador, accredited by Francis I to the Imperial & Peripatetic Court of Charles V, was mixed up in the scheme to swap Burgundy for Milan mentioned on 9th April. He was also a good friend of the left hand, hence the visit to England to see him.
The second book was mainly concerned to tell one about the astronomical instruments on the top shelf, painted with such care & skill. North appears to think that the instruments have been carefully painted to indicate the time of day and the date of the painting with, to this end, Holbein drawing on the knowledge of his astrological friend Nicolas Kratzer. There is also talk of horoscopes and hexagrams. I ran out of puff about half way through this book, unconvinced that Holbein was being quite as careful about his painting of the instruments as North was suggesting. I rest content with the idea that they simply stand for an important part of the the baggage of an educated man in the early sixteenth century; no more and no less. But I allow that Holbein might have been having a bit of sport at our expense by painting the shadows on and around the instruments neatly enough to suggest that they might be telling the time or whatever and he died happy, like James Joyce, secure in the knowledge that legions of scholars would spend quality time trying to work out the solution to a puzzle which did not have one.
Now looking for a home for them, along with the bacon last mentioned on 7th May.
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