Clementoni - Milan Canals 1000 Piece Jigsaw Puzzle

The Naviglio Grande at the last of the light, when the water has gone the same rose as the sky and stopped moving altogether. A long exposure, which is what turns the canal into a mirror and turns this into a harder puzzle than it looks.

What you are looking at

You are on a bridge in Milan's Navigli quarter, looking straight down the canal. Ochre, cream and dusty pink apartment blocks line both banks, four and five storeys, with shutters, small iron balconies and washing lines. Along the left towpath a run of bar awnings and umbrellas with the lights on underneath them, and iron railings between the path and the water. On the right, timber pilings, moored boats and a lower, darker terrace. Street lamps are just coming on. A bridge crosses in the far distance, where the two banks meet at the vanishing point.

The Naviglio Grande is medieval, and it earned its keep long before the bars arrived: this is the canal that carried the Candoglia marble into the city to build the Duomo.

What it is like to build

The picture is nearly symmetrical top to bottom, and that is the trap. Everything above the waterline appears again below it, so every piece of wall has a twin somewhere in the box, and a piece of reflected wall will sit convincingly in a hole meant for a real one.

The rule that fixes it: the reflection is always softer and one shade darker than the thing it reflects. The long exposure smooths the water, so reflected edges are blurred while the real ones stay sharp. Once you are checking for that, the twins stop being a problem.

Build the two banks first, starting from the awnings on the left, which are the brightest and most varied region. Then the railings, a thin repeated vertical pattern that places much faster than you would expect. Do the water last, and check every piece against the building directly above the hole rather than against the pile.

Why Clementoni for a picture like this

Clementoni are Italian and this is their High Quality Collection, made in Italy. They print with notably vivid, well separated colour, which is the whole reason this image works: a rose sky over rose water could easily turn to mud, and here the two stay distinct. The box is one of their compact square formats, worth knowing if you are shelving a collection.

Specifications

A little context

Milan is under-represented in the category compared with Venice, Rome and Florence, and the canals are the reason it appears at all: they are the one part of the city that photographs like the Italy people carry in their heads. If you want the mirror-water build at its most extreme, Lighting Venice is the same idea with more of the picture underwater.

Stock is real and it is in Sydney. Free shipping Australia wide over $150, and free same-day delivery inside 6 km of North Bondi with no minimum.

Built it already? Use the Questions section below and tell us how you found it. Which part fought you, how long it took, and whether you would send someone else to it. We answer every one.