The painted miniature books (12)… The Grand Finale!

The last lot of three books share in common a solo Poirot in the middle of his dramatic “big reveal.” They also include two holidays, two quotes about the nature of truth, and two moments of unusually dramatic inferno-lighting.   🙂

This miniature of the collection of stories known as The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding includes an image from the corresponding episode “The Theft of the Royal Ruby,” an alternate title. The quote is from the title story. You may notice that when I took this photo, the white stripes on the spine of the book had not been painted on yet. Oops! I like the little Santa figurine on the mantle piece, and the evergreen garlands. Obviously we’re going for a Christmas-y feel here.

Likewise, for Hallowe’en Party, I chose a festive pumpkin color for the book and an image of Poirot looking positively mephistophelean in the glint of the orange glow of firelight. This particular Christie story is one of maybe three or four Poirot tales where the villain is presented as a sort of satanic archetype, so I utilized the conceit for this little cover. I loved painting that bit of fire– and that silver fob! Like in the Death on the Nile image, that one bit of bling makes the picture glow. The quote is a great one, too.

Finally, Three-Act Tragedy. It was terrible trying to narrow down which image to use for the cover. There were gorgeous shots of Poirot with Sir Charles Cartwright in a garden panorama, and one pic I was very keen on of Sir Charles and Egg in the background drinking cocktails, with a blurred Poirot in profile in the foreground. That particular image seemed to sum up the book plot nicely, and three characters on a cover would have been great. But no, at last I was forced reluctantly to use this image. The stage imagery and the striking lighting made it too perfect for complementing the book title. I had trouble choosing the quote, too. There’s a marvelous Poirot quote about the observation of human nature in that book, but I ended up once again using a quote that reflects drama and stage trickery, in keeping with the story’s themes.

There ends the project of 39 painted miniature Poirot books, representing Christie’s full canon of Poirot. They took three months to paint. Only, it doesn’t really end there, because these little guys needed, I felt, their own custom shelf. And that would be a project of another month and a half. To be continued…!