Properly known as The Carpet Merchant. Gerome traveled extensively in North Africa and the Middle East. The Carpet Merchant depicts the Court of the Rug Market in Cairo, which he had visited in 1885.
I had originally ordered the extra large version with 658 pieces, but returned it for the large one because the whimsies (figures or ornamental pieces) were inappropriate for a painting depicting Middle Eastern culture. This one is much like an oriental carpet on the back. Because of the symmetry in an oriental carpet, there are multiple pieces with nearly identical shapes. They appear at the top, bottom, left, and right, in the four corners, and both inside and outside a central border. These pieces made assembly much easier, taking just under six hours.