A Woman Reading, after Pieter Janssens Elinga

In the pictureIn a room lit through a leaded window, a woman in a red dress and white headscarf sits with her back to us, reading a book. A pair of red slippers lies on the floor; on the right are a red chair and a table covered with a dark cloth, and two pictures hang on the wall. The floor is tiled.

BackgroundThe original is an oil painting by the 17th-century Dutch painter Pieter Janssens Elinga, in a museum in Munich. François Bonvin was a painter in 19th-century Paris who admired Dutch interiors and painted quiet everyday scenes, and this watercolor is a copy he made while studying the original. The slippers left on the floor and the woman seen from behind carry over the stillness of interiors from Vermeer's time.

Puzzle tipThe grid of the window and the straight lines of the floor tiles form the framework. Fit the pieces of the red dress, the slippers and the red chair first, put the window pieces in place at the top, then fill in the floor and walls. 100 pieces is about right.