This puzzle is a cool Swirl Curl puzzle. The swirls in this puzzle were a little deeper than I normally do them (in general smaller piece Swirl Curl puzzles have deeper curls than larger piece Swirl Curls on average), and I liked the resulting effect.

As it happened (from my Journal archives)

This is the 20th Custom Puzzle Craft wooden jigsaw puzzle to be offered for sale on eBay in my ongoing 100 Puzzles Project of almost-monthly auctions, planned to run through the year 2009. This puzzle was hand cut by me, John Stokes, seller of this puzzle.

This puzzle, "Banfi Vineyards", features an excellent photograph by master photographer Michael Seewald, the photographer whom I've featured several times before within the 100 Puzzles Project. This image was removed from one of Michael Seewald's 10th Annual, limited edition art calendars (year 2002), of which 499 were printed. This limited edition calendar is now going for $150! This image is the "June 2002" image. This puzzle is a limited edition of ONE, I will not be purchasing any additional year 2002 calendars nor accepting commissions from others for this image. Information regarding the purchase of the calendar may seen here.

"Banfi Vineyards" - measures 13 1/4" by 13 1/4" and contains 476 pieces, cut in my Swirl Curl style. This is the most pieces I've cut in a Swirl Curl cutting style puzzle to date. The puzzle includes two figurals, one in the shape of the country of Italy, (as this photo was taken in Tuscany, Italy), and a wine bottle, cut in the shape of one of the Banfi Brunello vineyards' bottles. Several nearby pieces suggest the islands of Sardinia and Sicily. In this puzzle is my signature piece (signed, numbered and dated on the back). I also marked a second piece on the back, indicating the puzzle belongs to the 100 Puzzles Project. After assembling the sky, which is fairly easy to do, this puzzle is "all down hill", with the bottom section quite difficult! There are a few spots of color line cutting.

Michael Seewald writes:

Podere Belcaro is it's name, the chef spat out when I showed him this particular photo I'd made just below his hilltop town a year and a half earlier. (It was now the spring of 2001, and I was creating a new series that will be called 'Tuscany II). "The house is on the Banfi Brunello vineyards property", he continued, "and 'caro' means love, like a friend or family member. I don't know what ' bel' is for [note: "good"]. 'Podere', means a kind of dwelling, usually from a land worker." All I knew was that the house was just what I needed to cap the beautiful lines leading from the fall vineyards up to the sky.