Cottage in England - Ravensburger Jigsaw Puzzle

“After many years of hard work and study I seem to be living the dream at the moment. From childhood I have always been fascinated by nature and this has become the main feature of my art and so I am never short of inspiration as work and hobbies have just become one and the same.

Having been successful in breeding many rare birds I now get invited to give presentations as far a field as Africa and Australia and where I am then able to explore the wilds with the worlds experts. I visit so many amazing places I often have to pinch myself and so bursting with inspiration and reference I return home to paint my images. These images are frequently licensed by Zoo’s and Aquariums and so I then get to visit ‘behind the scene for hands on experience with even more fascinating species. Inspiration is all around me even as I work, at the end of my studio I have a glass wall enclosing my own piece of rainforest complete with waterfall and tropical plants in which poison dart frogs live and breed.

I really do work far too hard but if I was to retire today what would I do?, exactly what I am doing now.”

Ravensburger History

The company was founded by Otto Robert Maier with seat in Ravensburg, a town in Upper Swabia in southern Germany. He began publishing in 1883 with his first author contract. He started publishing instruction folders for craftsmen and architects, which soon acquired him a solid financial basis. His first board game appeared in 1884, named "Journey around the world".

At the turn of the 20th century, his product line broadened to include picture books, books, children’s activity books, Art Instruction manuals, non-fiction books, and reference books as well as children’s games, Happy Families and activity kits. In 1900, the Ravensburger blue triangle trademark was registered with the Imperial Patent office. As of 1912, many board and activity games had an export version that was distributed to Western Europe, the countries of the Danube Monarchy as well as Russia.

Before the First World War, Ravensburger had around 800 products. The publishing house was damaged during the Second World War and continued to produce games in the years of the reconstruction. The company focused on children's games and books and specialized books for art, architecture and hobbies, and from 1962 grew strongly. The company started to produce jigsaw puzzle games in 1964, and in the same year opened subsidiaries in Austria, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. In 1977 the company split into a book publishing arm and a game publishing arm.

Today there are approximately 1,800 available books and 850 games as well as puzzles, hobby products and CD-ROM titles at Ravensburger and its subsidiaries, which include Alea for "hobby and ardent game players" and FX Schmid for games and children's books. Ravensburger products are exported to more than fifty countries.

In September 2010, Ravensburger broke Educa's record for the world's largest jigsaw puzzle of 24,000 pieces. Ravensburger's new puzzle design by late pop artist Keith Haring titled, 'Keith Haring: Double Retrospect' breaks the Guinness Book of World Records measuring 17' × 6' built from 32,256 pieces and comes with its own dolly cart for toting.