Sherwin Williams Paint Puzzle > Sherwin Williams Paint Puzzle
This jigsaw puzzle features an advertisement for the Sherwin-Williams Paint Company on one side and a map of the United States on the other. Although it is distinguished by its unique format, the puzzle is part of Avery's Trade Catalog Collection, one of the world's largest collections of catalogs from the American building trades. The Sherwin-Williams flyer touts the company's wares in a central image of a dramatically painted house and four smaller vignettes describing the paints' various uses.
The Sherwin-Williams flyer is a chromolithograph by W.J. Morgan of Cleveland and the United States map is by E.J. Clemens of Clayville, N.Y. To make the puzzle, these two pieces of paper were glued to a wooden board which was then cut into forty-nine pieces with a jigsaw. Judging by the date of the map, the puzzle probably dates to the late nineteenth century.
The Avery Classics collection includes other puzzles, such as a set of views of the 1876 Centennial Exhibition at Philadelphia entitled The great American centennial exhibition puzzle blocks, in sectional parts. There are almost one hundred catalogs, sample books, and advertisements for the Sherwin-Williams Paint Company in the Trade Catalog Collection--typical of this encyclopedic collection.