Lot Essay
Thomas Varty took over the firm of Roake & Varty circa 1848 and was known for his natural history and religious dissected puzzles.
Details
Varty's New Puzzles. The Animal Kingdom Drawn on Scale and arranged according to CUVIER. With their comparative sizes to MAN. BIRDS, a hand-coloured lithograph mounted on a dissected wood puzzle of VI orders of birds from a humming bird to an ostrich - published June 1843 by Thomas Varty, York House, 31 Strand, designed and drawn on stone from Nature by W. Hawkins, animal painter, printed by Day & Haghe Lithographers to the Queen, and with shop label on the box lid from E.C. Spurin late Edlin's English and Foreign Warehouse, 37, New Bond Street (one large and three small pieces missing)
(See Frontispiece)
(See Frontispiece)
Literature
Linda Hannas, The English Jigsaw Puzzle 1760 to 1890 mentions similar comparative size puzzles, From the Elephant to the Mouse and From the Ostrich to the humming bird, both published by N. Carpenter. Roake and Varty published a series of 22 puzzles by W. Hawkins showing various animals and their utility to man, but this lithograph is not mentioned and is of exceptionally large a size.