6000, Educa, Love’s Labour Lost, Edwin Longsden Long

Educa published this beautiful puzzle in 2010. It is now very rare and hard to find. As a result, many puzzle fans are looking for it. The title is Love’s Labour Lost, by Edwin Longsden Long.

This puzzle is NEW, with its original FACTORY SEAL.

The puzzle aligns with the Educa tradition of large fine arts puzzles. In recent years we have seen a lot of digital art themes. These ones seem to be very popular, but there is still a high demand for traditional art jigsaw puzzles.

Love’s Labour Lost, the painting

William Shakespeare wrote the play Love’s Labour’s Lost at the end of the 16th century. However, it seems that Edwin Longsden Long was not thinking of Shakespeare’s comedy when he created this masterpiece. The author specialized in genre pictures of ancient Egypt with a lot of details, as this one. The furnishings in this painting suggest a familiarity with ancient Egyptian artifacts, and Long did, in fact, travel to Egypt in 1874.

The objects in the foreground and background, as well as the decoration of the rear wall and details of the clothing, all find parallels in authentic ancient Egyptian artifacts. The stool on which the central figure sits is a faithful copy of an Eighteenth Dynasty stool in the British Museum, constructed of ebony with intricate ivory inlay.

The central figure, presumably a noble Egyptian girl, feels now an adult. For that reason, she is no longer interested in the childish entertainment of her servants. At the same time, the musicians in the background are entering the room. That’s how the artist captured ancient Egyptian life in an equally dramatic, yet intimate, fashion in this detailed and researched painting.

Edwin Long completed this painting in 1885. It remains today in the Dahesh Museum of Art in New York.

Another puzzle by Edwin Long is the 1500 version by Anatolian of The Babylonian Marriage Market.

More information about Love’s Labour Lost:

• Puzzle size: 156 x 107 cm.
• Box size: 46 x 32 x 8.5 cm.
• Reference number: 14453.
• EAN number: 8412668144538.