Dissected tables of Roman history chronologically arranged (Syn.5.78.38) Dissected tables of Roman history chronologically arranged (Syn.5.78.38)

These hand-coloured engraved portraits of rulers of Rome, from Romulus to Augustus Caesar, are mounted on mahogany and dissected to form a jigsaw puzzle, kept in a mahogany box. The earliest surviving jigsaws, produced in London in the second half of the eighteenth century, were called ‘dissected tables’: they had to be cut by hand and as a consequence had much larger and straighter pieces that the jigsaw puzzles we see today. This ‘dissected table’, like others of its time, was designed as an educational tool, rather than a toy.

These hand-coloured engraved portraits of rulers of Rome, from Romulus to Augustus Caesar, are mounted on mahogany and dissected to form a jigsaw puzzle, kept in a mahogany box. The earliest surviving jigsaws, produced in London in the second half of the eighteenth century, were called ‘dissected tables’: they had to be cut by hand and as a consequence had much larger and straighter pieces that the jigsaw puzzles we see today. This ‘dissected table’, like others of its time, was designed as an educational tool, rather than a toy.