Lake Matheson, New Zealand (1000 pcs)

This 1000-piece jigsaw puzzle takes you to the shore of Lake Matheson, early on a still morning in New Zealand. A chain of snow-capped mountains cuts across a pastel sky where the gold of dawn melts into the blue of a new day, while a thin mist drifts above the water. A dense row of conifers lines the shore, dark and silent, and every peak, every tree repeats itself exactly in the lake's liquid mirror, so sharp it becomes hard to tell the real landscape from its reflection. The mood is calm, almost suspended, as if nature were holding its breath for this one fleeting minute of light.

This body of water is about 14,000 years old, carved out when the Fox Glacier retreated and left behind a hollow that slowly filled with water. Its tea-brown waters, tinted by tannins from the surrounding forest floor, act as an almost perfect mirror: on still days, the peaks of Aoraki/Mount Cook and Mount Tasman reflect with a precision that is almost dizzying. The phenomenon only appears in the early hours of the day, before the wind ripples the surface, exactly the moment this jigsaw puzzle captures forever.

Dimensions: completed puzzle measures 70 x 50 cm.