These 15 Jigsaw Puzzles Are So Beautiful You'll Want to Frame Them

There's a reason people around the world are turning to puzzles as a creative antidote to the boredom, sadness, and anxiety induced by the COVID-19 quarantine. These tactile, tabletop "devices" make for entertaining and stimulating—not to mention beautiful—diversions from the near-constant screentime streaming into households as we make an effort to stay connected to family, friends, and colleagues.

And that tactile engagement, it turns out, is good for our mental health. Research shows that long-term puzzle solving, which engages the left and right sides of the brain at the same time, can have beneficial cognitive effects like improving memory and relieving stress (by requiring near-meditative levels of concentration on the task at hand). As a bonus, working puzzles often facilitates a screen-free connection between family members, especially across generations.

Our fascination with puzzles is more than 300 years old. Jigsaw puzzles, which trace their origins back to the 18th century when European mapmakers pasted their work onto wood and cut them into small pieces, have long been used for educational purposes. (Children still use simple puzzles to learn geography today.) Puzzling as a hobby for adults took off in the early 20th century, particularly during the Depression era in the 1930s.

Do yourself a favor and take a break from television, Instagram, online classes, and even podcasts and give puzzling a try. These 15 jigsaw puzzles—from those with vibrant, unexpected color to those that satisfy wanderlust—are so gorgeous you'll want to varnish and frame them for your walls (and posterity, of course).