A New Clue
The 4-book anagram and the Apple Orchard sundial.
Read solutionPicture Puzzle — 44-Letter Map & Eight Safes Code
The Picture Puzzle is the largest single cipher in Blue Prince — it spans the entire mansion. Every room of the 46-room grid has two specific paintings on its walls. The names of the objects in those two paintings differ by exactly one letter. Collect the differing letters across all 44 used rooms (the Entrance Hall and Antechamber slots have their own rules) and you get a 44-character sentence that explains how to open the eight safes hidden around the estate. This page gives the full sentence, the letter for every room, and the safe codes the sentence unlocks.
The answer: "If we count small gates, eight dates crack eight safes." Eight safes, eight four-digit dates. Known codes include 0415 (Drawing Room), 1225 (Boudoir), 0303 (Office), 1208 (Study), and 1108 (Drafting Studio).
The Rule: Differ by One Letter
Walk into any room and look at the two paintings on the wall. The object in each painting has a name. Those two names share all but one letter. The extra letter is the room's contribution to the puzzle.
Example: in the Entrance Hall, one painting shows a face card, the other an ace. FACE minus ACE = F. That's the bottom-center letter of the grid.
The artwork is fixed by position, not by room type. If a Library spawns in grid slot E5 today and a Kitchen spawns there tomorrow, the two paintings stay the same — only the room around them changes.
The Study Chalkboard Grid
The Study contains a chalkboard with a grid shaped exactly like the mansion floor plan. Letters fill in as you discover artwork pairs. The grid is read row by row, starting at the bottom (the Entrance row, A) and moving up to the Antechamber row at the top. The bottom-center cell is pre-filled with F.
All 44 Artwork Pairs (Word by Word)
| # | Pair | Extra letter |
|---|---|---|
| Word 1–2: IF WE | ||
| 1 | Chief − Chef | I |
| 2 | Flight − Light | F |
| 3 | Wheat − Heat | W |
| 4 | (E from "WE") | E |
| Word 3: COUNT | ||
| 5 | (C) | C |
| 6 | Boat − Bat | O |
| 7 | House − Hose | U |
| 8 | Crown − Crow | N |
| 9 | Plant − Plan | T |
| Word 4: SMALL | ||
| 10 | Spine − Pine | S |
| 11 | (M) | M |
| 12 | Paint − Pint | A |
| 13 | Flan − Fan | L |
| 14 | (L) | L |
| Word 5: GATES | ||
| 15 | Grain − Rain | G |
| 16 | (A) | A |
| 17 | Planet − Plane | T |
| 18 | Stage − Stag | E |
| 19 | Coast − Coat | S |
| Word 6: EIGHT | ||
| 20 | Tube − Tub | E |
| 21 | Pilot − Plot | I |
| 22 | Tiger − Tier | G |
| 23 | Chart − Cart | H |
| 24 | Tent − Ten | T |
| Word 7: DATES | ||
| 25 | Card − Car | D |
| 26 | Coat − Cot | A |
| 27 | Stage − Sage | T |
| 28 | Fire − Fir | E |
| 29 | Sand − And | S |
| Word 8: CRACK | ||
| 30 | Crow − Row | C |
| 31 | Tier − Tie | R |
| 32 | Road − Rod | A |
| 33 | Clock − Lock | C |
| 34 | Peak − Pea | K |
| Word 9: EIGHT | ||
| 35 | Plane − Plan | E |
| 36 | Stairs − Stars | I |
| 37 | Bridge − Bride | G |
| 38 | Bath − Bat | H |
| 39 | Cart − Car | T |
| Word 10: SAFES | ||
| 40 | Dessert − Desert | S |
| 41 | Pray − Pry (crowbar visual) | A |
| 42 | Face − Ace (Entrance Hall) | F |
| 43 | Pine − Pin | E |
| 44 | Stag − Tag (buck = stag) | S |
The Trickiest Pairs
- 22 Tiger − Tier: A "tier" is a layered cake. The image hints at cake levels, not a person.
- 28 Fire − Fir: Fir is a tree, not the source of the fire. A burning fir tree is the visual joke.
- 29 Sand − And: The visual is an ampersand (&) in the sand. Pure pun.
- 34 Peak − Pea: A mountain with peas growing on it.
- 41 Pray − Pry: A crowbar. "What do you do with a crowbar?" — pry. The praying hands are the second image.
- 44 Stag − Tag: A buck is another name for a stag.
The Eight Safes
The sentence is a hint: "small gates" puns on "small gaits" — the stride of figures in the paintings — but the practical takeaway is that there are eight safes in the mansion, each opened by a four-digit date code (MMDD).
| Safe location | Code |
|---|---|
| Drawing Room | 0415 |
| Boudoir | 1225 |
| Office (behind the bust) | 0303 |
| Study | 1208 |
| Drafting Studio | 1108 |
| Red Door lock | M-A-Y-8 (text-coded) |
| Safe 7 | community-derived per save |
| Safe 8 | community-derived per save |
The last two safe codes vary based on save-specific letters and clues — they're not universally fixed.
Picture Puzzle FAQ
Do I need to find all 44 pairs to use the safes?
No. The safe codes are dates from clues elsewhere in the estate. The 44-letter sentence is the meta-explanation. You can open safes without ever filling the chalkboard.
Are the artwork pairs random per save?
No. They are fixed by mansion grid position. Two players on different saves see the same pair in the same coordinate.
What about the Antechamber row?
The Antechamber row at the top of the grid is decorative — those cells don't carry letters in the 44-letter answer.
How fast can I solve this?
Realistically 3–5 runs. You need to draft rooms across the full grid; on any single day you'll only see ~7–10 of the 44 paintings.
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