The 16 square puzzle most of the "Study of Praying Hands" by German artist Albrecht Dürer. When the puzzle is complete, you will jump to a 25 square puzzle with the same image. You can go there directly by clicking the red square.
The 25 square puzzle using most of the "Study of Praying Hands" by German artist Albrecht Dürer. When the puzzle is complete, you will jump to a 36 square puzzle with the same image. You can go there directly by clicking the red square.
The 36 square puzzle using most of the "Study of Praying Hands" by German artist Albrecht Dürer. It is getting to be very difficult to complete with all the shades of grey! When the puzzle is complete, you will jump to a 49 square puzzle with the same image. You can go there directly by clicking the red square.
The 49 square puzzle using most of the "Study of Praying Hands" by German artist Albrecht Dürer. This puzzle is VERY hard. Congratulations if you succeed. The applet permits up to a ten square puzzle. If there is any interest in my listing a puzzle of greater difficulty, drop me a line and I'll add it in. You can read about the artist below.
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The image is most of a "Study of Praying Hands", a 1508 work in brush and ink heightened with white by truly one of the great masters of all time ~ German artist Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528). You may see the image as I saw it first on Carol Gerten's fine CGFA site here (Japan) or here (U.S.A.). Carol's site has indeed many many more images of Albrecht Dürer's work. There are a great many sources of images and data re the artist on the WWW. For a listing of resources, check here.
The original 1508 artwork, 29 cm x 20 cm. in size, is in the Graphische Sammlung Albertina, in Vienna, which however is, I understand, closed until the fall of 2002.
Albrecht Dürer was born on May 14th, 1471 in The Imperial Free City of Nürnberg (Nurenberg to us today). He was the third child and second son born to Albrecht Dürer, a Hungarian goldsmith, and Barbara Holfer, the daughter of a jeweller. The Hungarian family name of the Dürers was "Ajto" (door in Hungarian), but the father used the name Türer which sounds, I understand, like the German word "Tür" meaning door. The artist called himself however Albrecht Dürer.
There were 18 children in the artist's family but only three lived long enough to grow up - Andreas born in 1484, a goldsmith, Hans, also an artist, born in 1490, and Albrecht himself. I mention this because of the "folk story" which is said to be about Albrecht Dürer and can be seen on a multitude of sites on the WWW. I have found little data, so far, as to whether there is any foundation for the story being true. Certainly there would appear to be two versions, one which involves Albrecht and a brother named Albert and the other involves Albrecht and a childhood friend named Franz Knigstein. Since most of Albrecht's family died young, the brother story sounds unlikely but surely not impossible. Both stories are similar, both are delightful, and perhaps all said and done the truth is irrelevant. If you have never read the story, you can read it below. And here, for any interested visitor, is a site where you can read the Knigstein version.
I hope that in the near future you will be able to read here some biographical notes about the artist and the artwork. I find, however, that that the research necessary to write such notes is most time-consuming, especially since I try to make the result both interesting and accurate. I have not had the time to complete any notes on the artist let alone research the artwork itself. The matter of the artwork is very confusing to me at the present moment. So at this time, in order not to delay those who just want to do the puzzle, I'll provide a couple of links to biographical data. First is the biographic material available on CGFA. And here is another fine mathematics source.
The java applet that runs the puzzle is courtesy of Axel Fontaine, who lives just south of the city of Brussels in Belgium. Axel invited free use of his fine applet which you can, I hope, download here.
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Return to data about the artist above.