Hand-sawn jigsaw puzzle based upon the painting Saving the Old Home (copyrighted in 1912) by Abbott Fuller Graves (1859-1936), manufactured by Pastime Puzzle, 1921. Puzzle image is stamped "copyright 1912, G.B. Co., Joliet, IL, U.S.A."
Brick Store Museum Collection, 2009.037.0001. Gift of Carol A. Reidy, 2009.

This hand-sawn wooden puzzle has 202 pieces and a finished size of approximately 15" x 9 1/2." The scene depicted is from Abbott Fuller Graves' painting, Saving the Old Home, which was copyrighted in 1912 by G.B. Co. of Joliet, Illinois, reproduced in lithograph form, and used as advertising for banks. The Brick Store Museum's collections contain several original Graves paintings representative of both his genre and impressionistic styles, but this is among the only images that the Museum has seen adapted for commercial use on an early 20th-century puzzle. True to Graves' other genre paintings, the people in the scenes were Graves' contemporaries in the Kennebunks; in Saving the Old Home, the person serving as the model for the young man who has come home to pay off the mortgage is none other than Kennebunkport artist Louis Doyle Norton (1868-1940). For more information on the genre paintings of Abbott Fuller Graves, see the comprehensive article written by Joyce Butler in The Magazine Antiques, August 1982, pp 308-13.

This puzzle was produced by Pastime Puzzle (patented August 7, 1919); the manufacturer's label inside the box lid indicates that is was "Sawed by 10", "Polished and finished by JA", with a stamped date of "10 08 21". Pastime had been established in 1908 as the puzzle line of Parker Brothers, a large game manufacturing company based in Salem, Massachusetts. Pastime was a highly successful commercial line over the course of next 50 years.

Noteworthy about the puzzle is its use of "whimsy" pieces distinctively shaped like people, animals, or household goods. According to Liberty Puzzles, a modern-day puzzle manufacturer that still employs whimsy pieces, "no one knows exactly when whimsy pieces started to appear in jigsaw puzzles, although it was most likely sometime in the late 19th century. By the late 1920s, figural pieces were common among numerous puzzle makers.With the advent and widespread distribution of die-cut, cardboard jigsaw puzzles, whimsy pieces became less and less common. With the exception of hand-cut jigsaw puzzles, today it is hard to find puzzles with whimsy pieces."

The Saving the Old Home puzzle contains more than 20 whimsy pieces (pictured above), including a lemon, goose, rabbit, fish, turtle, owl, cat, horse, dog, leaf, butterfly, pipe, bear, elephant, teacup, shield, crescent moon, hatchet, razor, house, letters, and an arrow.

This puzzle belonged to Margaret L. Adamson, the mother of the donor. A hand-written inscription inside the box lid for the puzzle indicates that it was originally purchased as a birthday present, likely for one of Margaret's two older brothers. According to the donor, Margaret summered at Fortunes Rocks in Biddeford, Maine, with her husband, Reverend L. Gordon Adamson, and often challenged family members to puzzle competitions. Charmingly, each time they completed this particular puzzle, they inscribed the date onto the box lid in blue crayon; the lid bears the dates "Oct 18 1921", "6-27-1922", then the inscription "One of the best" followed by the dates "7-20-1927" and "5-27-1928".

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