Five Clawed Dragon

I mentioned last week in my Doodle Cats post that I had found some rare and remarkable vintage puzzles on our latest thrift outing. Well, todays subject is one of the coolest finds from that day! A co-creation with the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Jaymar puzzles, we have a gorgeous round puzzle showcasing a beautiful embroidered robe. The piece is called the Five Clawed Dragon.

I have found one other souvenir puzzle from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Vulture Collar which was manufactured by Milton Bradley in 1978.

I have no idea when this particular puzzle was released. There is very little information on the box. What you see in the above photo is all there is.

This puzzle was HARD! I also knew pretty early on in the puzzle that it was definitely missing some pieces, because one of the edge pieces was nowhere to be found. The amount that I struggled to find pieces, I thought there’d be more than 6 pieces missing, ha ha ha!

This was such a special puzzle to put together though. The quality of vintage Jaymar puzzles is pretty nice, the pieces fit well together, though they are a bit glossy. The finished picture was gorgeous! I believe this robe came from the Qing Dynasty, and this piece was made in the 18th century, at least I think so, there are a lot robes out there with five-clawed dragon embroidery! I love how in the above photo, you can see how the Art Deco era really found inspiration in these older pieces, I love spotting the similarities!

This is an impressive puzzle indeed! 650 pieces, manufactured by Jaymar for the Metropolitan Museum of Art and missing 6 pieces.