The Art of Play: Peacock's Improved Double Dissection, 1860

Double Dissection, 1860
William Peacock & Co.
The Victoria & Albert Museum

Dissected puzzles, as they were accurately called, were the forerunners of jigsaw puzzles. These games were very simply made by placing a picture on a piece of wood and cutting it into shapes.

While some pieces might interlock, unlike a jigsaw puzzle, most of the puzzle was just pushed into place. Since the pieces didn’t lock, the completed pictures were difficult to keep in one piece.  To solve this problem, the outer edges of some puzzles, like this example, had long interlocking pieces that would serve as a frame to hold the puzzle together.

Most of these dissected puzzles had images on both sides, making them more difficult to complete a puzzle.  These examples were called “Double Dissections.”  The reverse of this puzzle has a map of England and Wales.

Here, we see an example from 1860 by William Peacock & Co., which is comprised of hand-colored engravings mounted on wood and cut into non-interlocking pieces.  This puzzle was cut into sixty-nine pieces of which three are now missing.