Wednesday, January 21, 2015

182. Chas. Ricketts: The Puzzle

Art reproductions abound on the Internet. Images of paintings can be ordered as posters, photographs are scaled up to be used as wallpaper, and imitations of paintings are sold by a variety of websites. Recently, I came across a website that sells drawings by Powys Evans (1899-1981), originally published in his book of portraits, Fifty Heads (London, Sheed and Ward, 1931). 

Well, drawings. Not exactly. The drawings are reproduced as... jigsaw puzzles, and one of them is his portrait of Charles Ricketts, advertised as Photo Jigsaw Puzzle of Chas Ricketts (Evans).


Jigsaw Puzzle of Charles Ricketts (Sold by PrintsPrintsPrints)
The price is $34.99 + $5.95 shipping, and for that you get a 'Photo Jigsaw Puzzle' featuring 'a cropped image of Chas Ricketts (Evans) chosen by Mary Evans'. The 'estimated image size' is: 356x254mm. The portrait is a '10x14 Photo Puzzle with 252 pieces'. It comes 'Packed in black cardboard box of dimensions 5 5/8 x 7 5/8 x 1 1/5. Puzzle image 5x7 affixed to box top. Puzzle pieces printed on RA4 paper at 300 dpi.'

The Mary Evans Picture Library is the source for this piece of merchandizing. The puzzle is made by PrintsPrintsPrints, that is to say, Amazon.com. How many people would, actually, want a jigsaw puzzle of Charles Ricketts? By the way, no puzzle of Shannon is available.

Ricketts's puzzle is 'in stock' (printed on demand of course). And, no, I did not order a copy.