COLLECTORS' BLUE BOOKS

Chess Sets
F. LANIER GRAHAM

Chess Sets
by F. Lanier Graham
No GAME HAS so LONG and rich a history as
chess; more has been written about it than
any other game. Curiously, however, little
has been written about chesspieces. This
profusely illustrated volume explores the
evolution and development of the "tools" of
the great game from the fifth through the
twentieth century. F. Lanier Graham, As
sistant Curator, Department of Architec
ture and Design of The Museum of Morlern
Art, provides a history of chess through his
discussion of the design and meaning of the
pieces, and thus presents a fascinating sub
ject from a new vantage point. Of particu
lar interest is the section on the more im
portant modern sets, which presents Mr.
Graham's view that contemporary designs
offer a new reality to the ancient and re
vered game.

JACKET ILLUSTRATION: Selected chesspieces

by Max Ernst from set designed in 1944.
Clockwise -Knight, Bishop, Pawn, Queen.
Collection William

N.

Copley.

To "tvlarccl Duchamp

" -'" ,

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"

t, .-

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COLLECTORS' BLUE BOOKS

Chess Sets

F. LANIER GRAHAM

WALKER AND COMPA.'\Y, NEW YORK

JJoward Staunton

FRO::\lTISPIEGF;

(?;'.

Designs for "The Staunton Chessmen,"

1839 :: n, Black and yellow \vatercolor,

16

10

in. R eproduced by kind pt'rmis

sion ofJ.Jaques & Sons Ltd" London.

Page 6: FIG,

Indian model:

Arabic based on an
King

( Shah ),

8th-g1h

ct'ntury. Ivory, b l/8 in. high. Cabinet

dcs Medaillc. Pari.

Copyright

,{:;

196B by F. Laniet Graham

All rights reserved. No part of this book

may bt' rt'product'd or transmitted in
any form or by any means, electronic or
me.chanical,

including

photocopying,

recording, or by any information storage

and retrieval system, without permission
in writing from t.he Publiher.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Num
ber: 68-14237
Published simult.aneously in Canada by

The Ryerson Press, Toronto

Printed in the Ln ited States of America

ACKNOWLEDGF.M F.NTS
EVERY STUDENT

owes an immeasura ble cleot co the work of

H.J. R. I\1urray, whose mo n umental History ofChej of 1913 remains the au
thoritative s t ud y . For a tho rough examination ofmt:u.ievaI piece in Chess, pub
lisheu in 1960) I am indehted to Hans and Siegfried \Vichmann. For discussing
particular hit()ric:a l q ues tio ns "\t-ith me, I am gr ate hll to \'Villiam . Co pl ey ,
rvrarcel Duchamp, AI Horo\vitz, A. E. J. f\.1ackett-Reeson, Julien Levy, and
Charles K. \Vilkinson. To the extent that I ha ve tried to place the development
oCchess sets \vithin the broader scope of history: I O\ve a speci al debt to Profes
so rs C. VVilliam Kerr and lYfeycr Schapiro.
For help in gath e ring material for this book, I would like to thank Alfred H.
Harr, Jr., Betsy Jo n es, Kynas to n L. 1\:tcShinc, Dorothy C. r..:Jiller, Ludwig
(;'lacsef, \/'Ir'illiam S. Rubin, and Jame.s Thrall So by , and all those \
.... ho allowed
their material to be studied and reproduced. Jessie :r\'lcab Dnnis of The
rVlct ropolitan I\:!useurn of Art) Pir.rre Gc orgal of the :!\-1 usee du Louvre , Rita
Reif of ike }\few rurk Times, Franr.is Salet of the "[use de Cluny, Richard
Tooke of The rvfusum of 1vfodern Art, and P. J. Chester of Oxford Uni
versity Press vvere particularly he lpful.
] \.vuuld also lik to thank Geoffrey Clernenls, Jame s 1--Iathc\vs, and espe
cially Stan Ries for their photography and pat ien ce , andJoseph B. Del Valle
for designing the hook under difficult circumstances.
Above alJ, I would like to express my grati tu de to M
: ildred Constantine who
suggested the book, Joan Vass ...vhose tireless editorial assistance has made the
book possible, Judilh K n ipe , he:r :;eeretary, an d Jo)' Feinberg, my secretary,
for their fortitude and good spirit.:;, Rob ert Caples fur his constant encouragc
rnenl uel\o....een our chr.ss games, and Rosemary, my understanding \....ife.
01' CHt:SS

history

TERMINOLOGY
THE

for the illustrations,

the si ngle

dimension refers to the h eight

of the tallest piec e in the picture, usu al ly the King. The identificalion of piec
follow, th e standard abbrevi a t ion" King (K), Queen (Q), Bishop (B),
Knight (Kt), Ca stle or Rook (C), Pawn ( P ) . The term "Castle" i, used rather
than "Rook" bccaw;e the rne ani ng of "Rook" is uncertain to most scholars,
unknown to most players, and its usage seems ineon:;istent with the na mes of
the other pieces, which unif ormly derive from medif:val European history.
F. L. C. June, '968
l

CAPTIONS

9
T I

lKTRODUCTION
CHAPTER I

India:

Origins of the Game

13

CHAPTER II

Persia and Arabia:

Naturalism and Abstraction

I

CHAPTER III

Early Europe:
Romancsque Naturalism
Gothic Na/uralsm
kIedieval.1bstraction

39

CHAPTER IV

Later

Europe:
Renaissance Resolution
Rococo Dissolution
}oleo-Classic Restoration

Q
l"

CHAPTER V

Twentieth

Century:

Dada and Hveryday Objects

Surrealism and Irrational Images
Bauhaus and Functional Forms

Sf

CHAPTER VI

Conc lus ion

Selected

Bibliography

INTRODUCTION
CHESS IS

A GAMe

APART. It has n o peers. For more than a thousand years its

unique qualities ha ve been p arti cularly attractive to minds that enjoy the

pleasures ofabstracl t hought.

No other game has so long and rich a history. The origins of che.."s lie buried

in the myths of ancient Asia. The poetry il has illspired-li'om The Arabian

IVi,l!,hls to the troubadours, from the

a library. The illuminated
chess as a themt:

Symbolists

m anuscripts

could fill a museum.

in every cou ntry on earth.

in the Surrealists-could fill

prints and paintings that have used

In one form or another, chess is played

l\,:fore has bce.n ,,,-'rittcn about chess than all other games

combined.

Ho",.'

ev er, very little has been written about chess sel<;, They have: be:en passed over

as "tools" ofthe more important "game." This book is devoted to the: neglected

instruments themselves, those molded piec es of material that arc the most
concrete expressions of the game.

A chesspiece is a tool. To understand it v isually , as a de sign, it IIlUSt be

c onsidered as a tool \vith a p articular nature.

In one aspect, it i:; a tool iII the

usual sense; it is h e ld and moved and used to do \vork. But the \vork it docs
is more abstr"act (han

physical

so its structural requirements

arc

slight. It is

used not to turn screws or hammer nails but to exert an imaginary force within

the world of the game. Therefore, as a design, a chess piece is primarily all
arti c ulat ed image

nf i nvested

po\",'er.

Tn this brief survey, the manner in \vhich the abstract pO\'\'er ofehesspieces

has been articulated into actua l images, and shaped i nto a coherent formal
system of useful

obj ect s

through the twentieth

\..."ill be traced rrom the earliest llrvi\'ing

century. Bc=:c:allse:

examples

the figurative tradition within the

history of chcs sets has been fairly well puhlished, this hook is

an

effort to

e lucidal e the lesser known tradition s of "conventional" and austract design.

H(;. :.!

Front vit...... of King shmvn in Figure I.

FIC.

Arabic: Kt, K, Q C, n. 8th-gth centulY. Bone, [I:B in. high. Germanisches

Nationalmuseum: Nuremberg.

CHAPTER I

India:

Or(gins of the Game

THE ANCESTRY OF CIIESS

is older than recorded

h isto ry . 'lore than five thousand

years ago, )J'eoJithic cultures played games on a surface delineated by sq u ares .

Archeologists have uncovered gaming boards and pieces in Egyptian tombs

as old as the predynastic period (ca. 1000 H,C.). The forms ofthcse ancient
pla ying; p ieces hear a striking rcsem u!arll:e Lo actual chsspicccs that dc
veloped many centuries later. One group from the Eighteenth Dynasty tomb
of

Queen

Ha t s hepsut

pieces, sim i la r to

(1495-''1-75 n,c.) includes not only

mo d ern

s imple abstrac t

Pawns, but pie<.:t's carved in the shape of an animal

head) foreshadowing the form of the modern Knight. The games in which
sllch pieces \yere used, however, '..'ere games of chance in which the moves
,vere determined by a drop of sticks

Or' a

roll of dice. There is a considerable

diHcrcnce bet''v'een the priTlciple of these elementary board games

and

t he

sophisticated complexities of chess.

hessitselfbcgan in nol"lh"veslindia. Someone (pcrhaps a G upta Buddh ist) ,

discontem with games ofchance, created a game in which ea c h player decided

for h im sel f \":hic:h moves to make.

In

that brief historical moment of human

istic resolu tion, the "principle of fate" was replaced by the "principle of
human ,vi11," and the game of chess was born.
Chess \vas conceived as a game of war. The simple playing pieces on the
traditional ashtap ada gaming board

vv e re

replaced by miniature symbols

representing Lhe separate parts of the Indian army. \'Vith d ifferent names and
moving powers: these symbolic figures l i ne d up on the board in the same ordf:r
as modern chesspi ec:es. Facing one another across a board of six ty-fo ur equal
squares

'......ue

chariot, horse, elephant, king, counselor, elephan t ) horse,

chariot, each side behind its rank of foot soldiers.

The ex act. date of the

development

of chess has tl o t been d etermined .

It

may he a<;;sumed that chess did nut exist in 326 B.C.: at which time Alexander
the CreaL defea ted the Indians.

Indeed ,

there is no evidence that the game

eve,' was played in ancient Creece. )'1oreover, t here

Sanskrit literature before ahout A.D.

000.

is

no mention of chess in

Hut it is knmvn thal Persians learned

12

I.:-;DJA

of the game in the middle of the sixth century. Allowing enough time for the
game to have developed, one may be reasonably certain that some form or chess
existed in nortin-vest India during at least the earlier part orihe sixth or latter
part of the fifth century.

FIG.4

Persian (Nishapur): Top: P, Kt, C P; Middle: C, B, 13, C; nottom: K, Q, Q,

C. Early 9th century. Ivory, some stained green, n: in. high. The :\1etropolitan Mu
seum of Art, New York, Excavations of the l\:fuseuill.' 1937-;38, Rogers Fund.

CHAPTER H

Persia and Arabia: Naturalism and Abstraction

PERSIA lE/\RNF,n CHESS FRO\1 INDIA

during the: rign of King Khusrau 1(531-

578). By the early seventh century, \vhen the Persian romance JCarnamak \va s
written) t.he game had become so pop ular and highly regarded that the author
could list chess as one of the accomplishments of Ardashir, the third-century
founder of the Sasanian !donarchy.

No c hesspieces survive from the first tWf.) or three centuries of the game.
HO\....evtr, pre-fllslirn li lerar y descriptions and pmt-lVluslim formal charac
teristics indic(:l le that t he eady Indian and Persian sts were pictorial, ,....ith

nat.uralistic figu re s rep rese nting- the names of the pieces. One kIlo\vn piece,
an daborately carved ivory King (Figs. 1, 2), ur\'ives to suggest what the
earliest p ieces may have looked like. The c harac ter of th form is Indian. But
the curious Arabic iIlSuipriuJl has caused considerable: controversy as to when

it 5 houJd be daleu. Ivlosl mudern authorit ies place it bet\vecn the eight h and

ninth centuries. If' this conclusion is valid, thc King may be the uldet ches
piece in existence.

The Arabs did not play chess in the time of Muhammad the Prophet (5706:2). Hut after the l\luslim conquest of Persia (u38-65 J), chess spr ead quickly.
\Vithin a hundred years, Arabs 'vvere playing on their p ractical roll-up
:iJoards" of cloth or leather, throughollt their extraordinary empire, \'Iihich
extended fr om the nortll\vest: COfIler of Spa i n to the southeast corner of the

Indus Valley.

The techn i cal and poetic literature of chess, \""hich medieval Europe "vas to
inherit.) de v elop ed dur ing the height of Islamic culture-the su-called Golden
"

Age of Arabic, in the first century and a half or the Abbasid caliphate (750goo). The most famous calif of that perjod ) Harun aI-Rashid

(786-89), is

prominently portrayed as a chess player i n Tlte Arabian /,/ights. Regardless of

t he amount of poetic distortion that develo ped between the ninth century and
the fifteenth, when the book's present form ,"vas compiled, it is known that

Harun pl ayed chess. In R02 Emperor Ni cephorus s ucceeded Empress Ir ene to

the Byzantine throne) and ''''Tote to Harun; ' .

. the Empress to whom I have

PERSIA AND ARABIA

succeeded estimated you as of the rank

'4

of the

Rook, and e.stirnated herself as

of the rank

of t he Pa\vn . . . . "
The soldie r s and poets of the 11iddle East identified closely wi th th e game.
Keenly aware of the similarities belween chess and life, their literature runs
the gamut of emotional association, from the gentle lyricism of The Arabian
.l{(f{hLs through the cosmic fatalism ofrhe mOSl fa molls passage in the literature
of chess-Fitzgerald's renderi ng of a quatrain [roln the Rubaiyat of Oroar
Khayyam (d. 1123):
'Tis all a Chequer-boa rd orK ights and Days
vVhere Destiny with 1vlcn fol' Pieces p lays ;
Hither and thither moves, and mates, and slays,
And one by one back in the Closet lays.
\""hile the Arabs \vere develop ing the literature

of the game, they also were

develo ping the design of chess sets. Thr: des.igns they inherited from Persia and
India in the seventh century \'\.'crc naturalistic. The new Muslim religion,
however, prohihited makin g realistic images. The l\1uhammadans, being
extremely fond of the game, devel oped an alternative. They designed t heir
chesspieces abstraclly.
One l ogica l development was the severe reductioll of naturali st ic proto
ty-pes to simple forms that retain only a sugges tion of realism. On e of the
best exa mpl e s of this quasi-abstr act style is a set in th e G-ermanisches National
museum, Nurembe rg (Fi g . 3). The Chariot (nov., Castle ) has a rectangular
outline with two splayed pinnacles. As analyzed by Hans vVichmann, this
form is derived from a profil e vic,,,,, of the naturalistic. chari ol, the pin nacles
r eta ining the pro minent points of a p r ofile vicvll-the head of a driver and the
head ora horse . The Horse (now Knight ) , with its single projection, maintains
the outline of the naturalistic p iece . The Elephant (now Bishop) has two
rounded projections-so rounded, in fact, that they suggest camel h umps .
But the Elephan t unearthed by Charles K. \Vilkinso n at Ni5hapu r (Fig. 4),
and other con t empo rary pi eces (Fig'. 12)J poin t to a t\vo-tusked pro totyp e.
The more com p lex forms of the Shah (now King) and the Vizier (now Queen)
are simplifications of the type of piece illustrated in Figure s 1 and 2. On top
of the for ward dome of the symholiC': elephant rides the semicircle of the
former h o wd ah on \vhich sits a buuonlike rudiment of the origi nal rider.
The other type of Arabic chess desig n is dcvoid of naturalism. Co m pletely
turned on a lathe, the shapes are s.o abstract that Occidentals have difficulty

loll: . .') J\.falayan; C, Kt, B, K, Q, B! Kt, C. 19th century. Ivory,

Harbeson, -Philadelphia.

.,;. in. high. John F.

distinguishingont: piece from another. The principles OIl whic h tbjs abstraction
originally ';Nas based ale un known. Donald .M. Liddell suggesled that the

height of the piece may h a ve been hast":d on the le ngth of the neck of the
animal repl't":sented. However, this theo!'y ha not been su bstantiat ed . The
earliest survivin g examples of this type were unc.overe.d in the !vl uslim cil)'
of :\:fansiira, \vhieh flo ur is hed from the lat.e eighth to the early eleventh cen
tury ( Fi g. 6). These pieces are so fr agme nted t hat t hey have not been identified.
The diffusion of thc t\".,:o AraLic styles \vklS extremely ,vidcsp re ad . Soon

after they developed, both styles fundamentally influenced European designs.

The higher abslract.ion seems to have re plac ed figures in Illdia, tlntil a taste
for Iht: naturalistic \vas rekindled by colonial Europeans. Kineteenth-century

exaluple s could be ro u nd in lvluslim cultures as far apart as Abyssinia (Fig. 7),

Pmia (Fig, 8) and Malaya (Fig-, ),

...J.:RSIA AND ARABIA

r--
-

- --

(/
/\

Above top:

FIG.

Indo-Arabic (Mansura): Sevn fragments. Early lIth century.

Ivory. The British j\.{usurn. London:

Middle:

FIC.

Abyssinian: K, Kr, B, Q, C, P. Early 19th century. Ivory. The British

Museum, London; formerly ''\'cllcd Sclassc,. Ras of Tigre.

Bottom:

FIG.

Persian (Kurdish): K, Q, B, Kt, C, P. 19th century. All figures above

reproduced from l\:!urray, A History ojChe.ss, London" 19J3.

PERSIA AND ARABIA

Page 17,

COLOR PLATE: :FW. 9

20th century. \Vhi ttled

.8

Nigerjan Bornu Province): K,

(...:t,1\ P, Kt, C, B. Early

limba wood, one sid singed, 7 in. high. '.I1JC .Metropolitau

o[ AI'l, New York, Gift of Gustavus A. Pfeiffer, I941 The board is slotted at
the corners so that it c.aIl be tied down.
Abm'c: FIC:. 10 J\'falayan (Selarlgor). The J\.{useum of Atc.ha<':ology and EthllOlogYi
Cambridge, Ldt: naturalistic Knight; Right: abstract Knight.
Opposite: FrG, II
.
Knights
Alask an (Yakutat): Abo\"(': thrf':f': Knights i Below: t....o
and a Hishop, r9th cCIHury. '\Vhittled. wood 3 in. high. The United Stales :"ratiunal
Museum} vVashington D.C. Reproduced from Stc\vart Cu lin Game. of the JI/orl"
l\1uscum

"

American Indians, Washington, D.C., 1907, p. 793.

19

PERSIA ACiD ARABIA

The quasi-abstract style also had a remarkably durable design tradition.

Some of its most interesting variations have been shaped in primitive societies
of Africa and Alaska. The tall, thin projections of the hventieth-century Niger

ian Castle, King and Queen (Fi g. 9) are extensions of high points in the proto
type pieces (Figs. 3,

4). Considering the time-lapse of ten centuries, the designs

of the Pawn and particularly the Knight are unusually close to the originals.
At the opposite extreme from this extraordinary conservatism are the remark
able Knights carved by the Yakutat Alaskans in the nineteenth century. Like
the -falayan craftsman \vho preferred dynamic abstraction (Fig. lOB) to static
naturalism (Fig. lOA), these Alaskans imaginatively explored the rich formal
potential of the quasi-abstract Knight (Fig.

I).

Their abstractions of the

animal's head have a clarity and expressiveness seldom equaled by more

sophisticated abstract designers.

,-..

Above, top and middle rows:

FlG. 12

Spanish.Arabic (I), 'Ager CheSsmen": C, Kt,

B, Q,K. 10th century (1). Carved and plain rock crystal, 21i. jn. high. Comtcsse de,
Behagut:, Paris. Found in the church at Ager" a village near Urge!, Catalonia.

Bottom row:

FIG.

13

Arabic: P, Kt, B, C, Q,K. 13th century ( " ) . Rock crystal and

smoky topaz with gold foil setting, 21 in. high. Topkapi Sa..tay Museum, Istanbul.

CHAPTER III

Early Europe

\VHEN

THE

MULtM ARMIES CONQUERED SI'AIN In the first quarter of the

eighth century, they presumably brought chess with them. Sometime later,
""estern Eur opeans took up the ga,me, using Arabic nomenr.iatuTc, rules and
pr oblem books. What is not known is \vhcn "Vestern Christendom adopted
this heathen game.
The

poets of the

later Middle Ages were q uite certain that Charlemagne

(742-814) played chess. This lege,

piec es arc still associa.ted \ViUI h is name. A more pr ecis e leg end states that
Charlemagn e s father, King Pepin I, "the Short" (75-i68)J donated a
crys tal chess s et to t.he abbey oflvIaussac in the year 764. Such lege nds are not
improbable, particularly v,.'h en one considers that Charlema.gne's c oun terpar t
in the East, Emperor Ni ce
. phor us {R02-fh I } , ".... as familiar ...\lith the game; the
Byzantin e court may well have assimilated chess along with other Persian
'

fashions. from the later Sasan.ian

Charle.magne and Harun aI-Rashid..

Very lit tle literature of any kind .survives from th e eighth, n in th and tenth
c..e.nturies, the ';Dark Ages" of Europ e H. J. R. Murray, turning to the next
best evidence, made a careful lingu.istic ludy of this period. He concluded

rnunicatiuns betv..'een

that:
The evidence derived from the nomenclature of chc.
of

the

game and its technicali.ties

Iberian peninsula at a
goo also.

date ea rlier th an

IOOO A.D., and probably earlier than

The \-veight. of this philological eviden.ce forces one to consi der seriously "\-",hat

basis there may have been for th e romantic tales of those later medieval poets
who were so sure that chess was played in the time of Charlemagne.

As for Charlemagne himself, th ere is one piece of evidence th at he may not

have been a chess player. If Charlcmagnc had pl ayed, it seems likely [hat
Einhatd {d.

840), h i s

secretary and biogr apher, "','Quid have listed such a

"noble" accomplishment i n his Vita Caroli iHagni, but

he docs

not.

This fact .
:

22

EARLY EUROPE

howeve r, does not precl ude the possibility o f chess being known, if not played,

by others at the time. Moreover, there is the possibility of "rare and wondrous"
chess sets simply arriving as gifts. Murray, for one, believed that the extraor

dinary ivory King (Figs. 1,2) reached Europe in the eighth century.
vVhether or not chess began to interest Europeans in the eighth century,

during the occasionally leisurely era of Pax Carolingia, the subsequent revival
of invasions and civil strifc left little time for playing at ,"var on a chess: table.
The earliest surviving manuscripts that specifically mention chess and

chess sets are ,....i11s from the family of the Count of Barcelona, whose lands then
included part ofsouthern France. The first will, dated 1008 by the Count of

Urgel, who lived near modern Andorra, leaves "these my chessmen to the
convent of St. Giles.... " The 1058 will of the daughter of the Count of Carcas

sonne gives "to St. Giles of Nimes her crysta1 chessmen." It is quite possible
that the early chess set, nov,,' in the Behague collection, is the one donated by
the Count ofUrgcl (Fig. 12).

The Iberian peninsula was only one of the t,,,ro points from ''''hich chess
disseminated to the rest of Europe. Italy ,"vas the other. Because of her continu
ing trade ,,,,,i1h the East, Venice is the IllOSt likely port through which chess may
have been imported. The game ,-vas played in many parts of Italy by the
eleventh century.
The earliest Italian document is a letter (1061 or 1062) from Petrus Damia

ni (1007-172) to Pope-elect Alexander II and Archdeacon Hildebrand.

Cardinal Damiani lists chess as one of the vices of which the clergy we re guilty.
He admits that both hc and the Bi shop of Florence had indulged in this
shameful secular sport. Such sinful admissions

,verc

frequent in the early

Middle Ages.
From the enlry points of Spa in and Italy, the game spread rapidly. An early
eleventh-century

re ference

establishes that chess was played in Germany by

two diplomats, possibly on the occasion of the meetin g between Emperor

Henry II and King Robert of France in 1022. There is a distinct possibility
that King Cnut (d. 1035) l earn ed chess i n 1027 while on a pilgrima ge to Rome.
If so, England and Scandinavia may have learned of chess earlier than is
generally believed. Murray assembled abundant evidence that chess playing
spread

\'
...ith

extraordinary speed:

After 1 roo the number of references increases fast: I have collected more than
fifty from the twelfth century, mainly from France and England, but a few

23

EARLY EUROPE

also from Germany ....From thirteenth century works I have collected well
over a hundred allusions to the game which establish its popularity from Italy
to Iceland and from Portugal to Livonia ....
During the latter part of the Middle Ages, and especially from the thirteenth
to the fifteenth century, chess attained to a popularity in vVestern Europe which
has never been excelled ....By 1250 the early prejudice of the Church against
chess had begun to 'weaken in view of the royal and noble patronage of the
game, and monastic orders '\\'crefreeIy accepting chess as a welcome alleviation
from the monotony of convent life, while a knowledge of chess had spread
downwards from the inmates of castle and monastery to the wealthier burgesses
and merchants of the towns ....Chess was, ho\vever, in the main a game of the
upper classes, and this was recognized so generally that it is mentioned again
and again in literature as one of the typical chamber recreations of the feudal
nobility
.

Throughout the Middle Ages, chess lyrics were on the lips of every troubadour.
Women could compete with men as equab. Lovers could either use the life
like symbolism of the game in poetic allusion, or throw the heavy boards at
one another. Feudal lords, with ever decreasing duties to call them outside
their castle walls, had a recreation that was militarily interesting and intel
lectually stimulating.

Romanesque Naturalism
Until about the year 1200, most Europeans played not only according to
Arabic rules and nomenclature, but also with Arabic chess sets.The popularity
of the quasi-abstract Arabic piece during this period is testified to by the surviv
ing chess sets (F.igs. 12,

13)

and early manuscript illuminations (Figs. 14,

15).

But from the very beginning, Europeans began to mold the game to their
own sensibilities.Gradually, Europe became the prime mover in the develop
ment of chess, while the Muslim game declined. The rules, the names of the
pieces and even the whole concept of the game were transformed. Visually
embodying this change of thinking was the form of European chess sets.
The first major design innovation was the development of naturalism.The
remote, impersonal God of Islam was quite different from the Christian God
of medieval Europe. 'fhe followers of Allah were forbidden to have naturalistic
figures in their art. The European foIlm.,rcrs of Jesus, ,"vith a rich spiritual
tradition of animisi
t c
things. Hov.'ever otherworldly their concept of God might have been, they
reached Him through intensely realistic images.

Above: FIG. 14

Chess players. !>t1iniature from the Carmina Burana manuscript. 12th

century. MS. LAT. 4660, I\1unich.

Below: FIG. 15

Otto IV "of the Arrow," M a rgrave of Hrandenbutg (I26fjI30B).,

playing chess. Illumination from lhe

Book oj .lvlmwsse.

versity Lib ra ry, Heidelberg.

I
!
,

.
/

.

'.,.,.rJ

Ca. 13':20. paL germ. 848. Uni

EAKLY EUROPE

With such a world view of what is meaningful, the early Europeans could
not he satisfied with the cool remoteness of abstract Arabic pieces. They took
hold of the formalized features, and, with simple symbols, animated these
shapes into figures ofliving, breathing thing; . For exampl e, the abstract head
ofa horse (Fig.

16)

acquired two eyes, and became a "real" head (Fig.

17).

The two abstract tus.ks of the elepb ant (partly because Europeans did not
know what an elephant was) developed into two representational heads
sometimes with timid naturalism

(Fig

(8), sometimes with bold proto

naturalism (Fig. 1 9 ) . finally with confident naturalism (Fig. 20) .

During the: eleventh and t\velfth centuries, this tendency to invest the
original abstract shape with new images reached the point ofan extraordinary
stylistic synthesis. Proceeding from the two-dimensional perception of relief
catving, Romancsque sculptors articulated complicated religious compositions
out of the "skin" nfthe abstract piece, ...vithout doing violence to the integrity
of the original outline (Fig. 2 1 ) . Such balance between two different art styles
historically is both uncommon and short-lived.
In general, the form of the traditional Arabic pieces continu.ed to exert a
strong influence for several centuries, but only as a factor, not as an equal
lorce. The eventual dominance of the Christian tendency toward figural and
arehitectual realism is

anticipa ted

by a remarkable ivory Queen (Fig. 2 2 ) . in

which the old Arabic outline has been almost completely metamorphosed
into a miniature cathedral.
The Romancsque phase of naturalism" in which figures were sha11O\\lly
chiseled

out of a dominant mas', gradually was succeeded by the more three

dimensional figurative concept of Gothic sculpture after a tr--ansitional period.

The first steps tov.'ard figures with an independent plastic existence are known
from chess sets that date ii'om about 1 200. Queens (Vizi.,,) (Fig. 23) from
this period illustrate the extent to which the outline of the Arabic piece has
been transformed into a convincing architectural space containing a relatively
i ndependent figure.
During the same period, when che.ssmen (like their counterparts in larger
sculpture) began to emerge from such architectural settings, they did so
timidly. Such pieces a those in the Lewis chess sets (Fig. 24) are still conceived
two-dimensionally. Not displacing space convincingly, they are front views
and back views pressed together.
The contrast between a Pawn oflhis same transitional period and a slight-

EARLY EUROPE

Left above :

FIG.

16

Arabic: : Knight.

8th-9th cenwry. Ivory, 2 Yl in. high.

Musee du Louvre, Paris.

Below : FIG. 1 7 ordic, based on Arabic

model : Knight. 9th- r oth century. Ivo
ry, 2 fl in. high. Musce de Cluny,

Opposite,

top

left :

Saxon : Bishop.

FIG.

18

Paris.

Anglo

10th century. \Vhale

bone, 41/8 in. high. The British Museum,

London.
Top righ t : FIG.

19

Nordic: Bishop.

roth- 1 1 th century. Hartshorn .. 3 1/ in.

high. Germanisches l\'ationalmuseum,
Nuremberg.
Bot tom: FIG. 20
Bishop (front

German (Cologne) :

and back) . 1 2 th century.

Ivory, J3i4 in. high. Stadtische Galerie,

Frankfurt-am-Main.

EARLY EUROPE

28

EARLY EUROPE

Iy later Danish Castle illustrates the difference het\.\'een two-dimensional

perspectives partially filling three-dimensional space, and the more pI(;ISlic

conception of the figure that soon developed. The s hield of the earlier Pawn
(Fig. 25) is one flal plane set perpendicularly to the flat plane of the body. The
later Castle (Guard) (Fig. 26) completely occupies the space around him. His
head and bod y are not Hat, graphicalLy demarked areas,

but bulging masSe

bouncing space off every contour. His sh i dd is not placed by his body ; it is

wrapped around him. His hand does not rest on top ofthe s\vord in a symbolic
gesture of holding ; il i'i a c tua lly grasping the s\\lord.

Gothic Naturalism
From the twe.lfth through the fourteenth centuries, chesspieces achieved
this fuller plasticity. Ho\vcver, the human figure, as a ches..'ipiece or as a full
, cale

sculpture, did not become the image of a completely independent

individual until the Renaissance. The nledieval

man 1

however great his

personal importance, also tended to be part of a larger reality. Th Bishup

shov,rn in Figure 27, for all his i mpressive strength as a person or as a chess
piece, is not completely self-contained and self-motivating. He owes part of

29
Opposite :

EARLY EUROPE

FIG. 2 1

Southern Italian : King. Ca. 1 roo. Ivory, 21!-h in. hjgh. lvlusee du

LouvTe, Paris. Carvings: King enthroned, flanked by two kneeling bodyguards ,,,,'ith
sword and shield (front) ; symbolic figures (back) .
Below : FIG. 22

French ( ?) : Queen. r r th- 1 2th century. Ivory, 3 }\. in. high. Mmcc

de Cluny, Paris. Carvings : Adoration of the Magi with Joseph on rigbt, formerly Star
of Bethlehem

was

represented by thin gold foil embedded just over pediment (front) ;

Massacre of the Innocents and Baptism of Christ (back) .

30

EARLY EUROPE

Opposite :

FIG.

24

Scandinavian or

Anglo-Saxon "Lewis Chessmen" : Top :

K (front), Q, B; Bottom : K (back), Kt,
C. Ca.. J 200. Walrus bone., 4 in. high,

AU, National Museum of the Antiquilies

of Scolland, Edinburgh , excepl King,

The British Museum, London.

FIG, 23

Southern ItaJian : Queen (Vi

zier) (front and

back).

Late 1 1th cen

tury. Ivory, fannedy painted red, 41%0

in. high, Cabinet des Medailles, Paris.

EARLY

EUROPE

33

EARLY EUROPE

his strength to a larger divine power. The Knight in Figure 28, for all his
dominating importance, is dependent for support on those who arc dependent
on him for leadership.
By the thirteenth century, Europe had transfigured the Arabic chess set
into an image of its own culture. The Oriental game of war, played with
symbols of a miniature army, was transformed into a game oflife, played with
symbols of a miniature state. The Shah became a King. The Vizier, his
companion and advisor, became a Queen. Together they ruled the state and
ran the wars. Beside them stood Bishops, who gave spiritual as well as political
and military counsel. Next were Knights., the backbone of the entire socio
economic structure of feudalism, and the army. Finally, Pawns-foot soldiers
of war, and the basis ofthe whole economy, either as agricultural serfs or urban
artisans. In short, the Gothic chess set was a naturalistic portrait of medieval
feudalism (Fig. 29) .
The development of naturalistic or pictorial chess sets was encouraged by
extremely popular ethical allegories, known as Moralities. One of the earliest,
the Innocm! A10rality of the late twelfth or early thirteenth century, provides a
persuasive view of chess as a lifelike game:
The world resembles a chessboard which is chequered white and black, the
colours showing the two conditions oflife and death, or praisc and blame. The
chessmen arc men of this world who have a common birth, occupy different
stations and hold different titles i n this life, who contend together, and finally
have a common fate-which levels all ranks . . . .
The King's move and powers of capture are in all directions, because the
King's will is law . . . .
The Knight's move is compounded of a straight move and an oblique one;
the former betokens his legal power of collecting rents, etc., the latter his
extortions and wrong-doings . . . .

Above left :. FIG. 25

Southern ltalian: Pawn. Lab:: 1 1 th century. Ivory, formerly

gilded, :3 in. high. Cabinet des Medailles, Paris.

Above right : FIG. 26

Danish ( ?) : Castle (Guard ) . 12th century. Hartshorn, P Ia in.

high. National lvluseum, Copenhagen.

Below left :

FlO.

27

Danish

Q1'-

German: Bishop. 13th century. Walrus bone, 2 1/4 in.

high. National Museum, Copenhagen. The eyes originally were jewels.

Below right :

FIG.

28

German : Knight. 14th century. Ivory or hartshorn, 31Y;" in.

high. Germanisches I'\ationalrlluseum" Nuremberg.

FIG. 29

School of the Maitre aux Boqueteux. .Allegory of

Chess with personified ehesspieces. Illumination from

Jacobus de Cessolis, Jeu des iehees moralist, translated from
'
the Latin by Jean de Vignay, Northern France, ca. 1360.
Tinted grisaille pen drawing on vellwn. The Pierpont
Morgan Library, New York, Gift of William S, Glazier.

The Pawns are poor men. Their move is straight, except when they take
anything : so also the poor man does well so long as he keeps from ambition.
After the Pawn is promoted he . . . moves obliquely, which shows how hard it
is for a poor man to deal righdy when he is raised above his proper st,ation.
In this game the D evil says 'Check ! ' when a man falls into sin; and unless he
quickly covers the check by turning to repentance, the Devil says 'Mate!' and
carries him off to hell, whence is no escape.
This feudal image of the Pawn as Poor Man, with most of life "above his
station," is reflected in the design of chess sets throughout the medieval period.
Until about the thirteenth century, only noblemen played the game. So only
the tanking pieces were considered important enough to be represented as
individuals. The form of the Pawn continued in the Arabic tradition ofsimple,
abstract anonymity.
This idea of the Pawn was appropriate in the early medieval age of name
less serfs. But as European society grew less static, thinking began to change.
The expanding economy of medieval towns established for the commercial
class a position of increasing importance between serfdom and nobility. The
emerging "middle class" wanted its rightful place to be recognized. The

Liber de morihus hominum et officiis nohilium, written by Jacobus de Cessolis in the

second half of the thirteenth century, gave them the acknowledgment they

FlO. :JO

Nordic ; Knight and Bi!lhop. Late 1 2 th-early

13th century. Bone:

i, in. high. State Historical Mu

seum, Stockholm.

were seeking. Cessolis was a Lombard priest of the Dominican Order, which
-was noted for its attempts to come closer to the common people, and to reduce

the sharpness of social distinctions. As Murray has noted, "the most or4,..-inal
and remarkable feature ofCessolis' work is his treatment of the Pawns. Instead
of treating them as one .group, representative of the commonalty in mass, as is
the general method in the moralities, he differentiates between the eight
Pawns, and makes each Pawn typical of some group of allied trades or profes
sions," The following abbreviation of the manuscript"s third section indicates
what each Pawn represented and what his symbols were :
Pawn J Peasants and Wine Growers ;
Pawn

a hoe

and a pruning knife.

Smiths, Carpenters and Masons; a hammer, axe, and trowel.

Pawn :3 Weavers and Notaries; a pair of scissors and 'Writing implements.

Pawn

Merchants and Changers ; a full purse and scales.

Pawn 5 Physicians and Apothecaries; a jar of medicine and knife.

Pawn

Innkeepers and Hostellers ; an inviting gesture and jug.

Pawn 7 City guards and Collectors ; a key and an open bag.

Pawn 8 Rogues and Vagabonds ; a few pennies and dice.
Sociologically, this work was so widely read (it was copied almost as often as
the Bible) that it paved the way for the popularity of the game among the
bourgeoisie. But visually, Pawn designs were not influenced by Cessolis'

EARLY EUROPE

figurative suggestions until stronger middle-class confidence developed during

the sixteenth century.

Medieval Abstraction
As the game began to spread beyond the confines of the nobility, the need
for i nexpensive chess sets developed. To Carve a Romanesque Of Gothic piece
was difficult and time-consuming, something only the nobility could afford to
commission. But simple abstract pieces could be turned out on a lathe easily
and quickly.
Of the two types of Arabic de.sign that have been discussed, the quasi
abstract style was the domina_n t foreign influence on European chess sets until
the thirteenth century. The demand for i nexp ensive production in the late
twelfth and early thirteenth centuries brough t ahout a highly abstract
European design styl e which was influenced by the Arabic lathe-turning
tradition (Fig. 6) .
Among the earliest European 'examples of this schematic or stereometric
style are two )Iordic pieces that date from about 1 200 (Fig. 30) . The symbolic
parts of these pieces are simple variations of the quasi -abstract Arabic_tradition.
The h eart shaped projection of an abstract head on the Knight (now chipped)
continues the traditional form of the K night. The two vertical projections of
the Bishop also derive from the abstract elephant tusks. illustrated in Figures
3, 4 and I 2 .
But innovation in d esign is shown b y a comparion of the forms of the
two shafts on which the symbols sit. Thc hody of the Knight is conservative ;
the mark of the lathe on it is superficial. The slight, decorative circles could
have been. pa inted on. On the other hand, only a lathe could have made the

37

EARLY EUROPF.

grooves in the Bisho p ; they have been deeply incised into the core of the body.
The shaft of this picce is a developed expression of the technique of its produc
tion. This star::k uf s,egmented disks is a fully three-dimensional design, not
merely a t\vo-dimensional line cncirclinR a three-dimeilsional object. The
Europeans were beginning to experiment with the formal possibilities of

complete abstraction.
The h ighest point in the formal development of this technical investigation
\-vas achieved in an extraordinary fourteenth-century chess set now in the Mu
see de Cluny (Figs. 3 ' , 3 0 ) . The transitional Bishop (Fig. 30) is a mixed
form, its shaft being based On the technique ofproductio.n its symbol continu
:ing the quasi-naturalistic tradition. The design of the Cluny set is based almost
entirely on the' physical requirements of lathe-turning. Both shaft and symhol
are integrated aspects of the same form-a series of segmented disks between
slightly flaring trape.zuids at base and crOwn. As with the schematic Arabic
dt'_igns) the level of abstraction i n the symbols is o refined that it is difficult
for most Occidental. to iden tify the pieces. Only the symbols ofthe Knight and
Bishop relate. to the q uasi-naturalistic tradition. But the forms of their tradition
al configurations are transformations that are thoroughly integrated with the
general stereometric design. The traditional projection on the Knight (Fig.

32)

is no longer an independent protrusion jutting out from the main body,

hut an extension that, by means of its thick concave curve and thin linear
continuations., is formally fused ,"v ith the cylindrica.lity of the main body. The
traditional (\Vo projections of the Bishop have been convrted into two concave
indentations symmetrically scooped out of the main body.
The revolutionary symbolism of the other pieces is totally non-naturalistic.
Huth the King and Queen are simply scored with-fout synlmetrical cuts on the

Opposite : FIG. :1 1

Scandinavian:

C, Kc,

8, K, Q, B, Kt: C. 14th century. Bone,

21%.

in. high.

Right : FIC. 32

{U!lcr. de

Cluny, Paris.

Bishop, Pawn and Knight

shown in Figure 3 I .

EARLY Jo;CROPE

cross-axis. The Cast.le is not scored at all I t is more th an likely that the abstract
.

symbolism of these pieces, if not the entire set, is an early forerunner ofn10dcrn
functional symholism in which th e marki ngs refer to hm,v the pieces move on

the board.
Schematic abstraction of this gene ral type became widespread in the
thirteenth and fourteenrh

centuries.

During the fifteenth and sixteenth cen

t uries this stylc blended with (he pa rall e l traditions of naturalism (Fig,

33 )

a nd quasi-abstraction (Fig. 34) to form the basic characteristics of modern

s tanda rd design.

1\'

A
f

Aoove : HC. B
:

\
'

Burgundian : K, H, Kt:

C, P. Late t4th- early 1 5 th century. Rock

crystal and smoky topaz with silver gilt selting. ).t!usee de Cluny: Park
Below: FIG. 4
silver

Burgundian : K, Q: B: Kt., C, P. Rock crystal and smoky topaz ''lith

gilt setting:

is in. high. fusee de Cluny, Paris (on

loan to Musec ell! Louvre).

C H A P T E R IV

Later Europe

AN EXTRAORDINARY CHAPTER In

the history of chess ended with the decline

of medieval feudalism and the rise of the middle class. The bourgeoisie, of
course, had been

ac quainted

with chess for SOInc time. But as a typical recre

ation, the gam e b elonged to the nobility, 'whose leisurely way oflife \-vas suited

to its characteristics. In the !vfiddle Ages, if a middle-class individual became

skilled in the ar t of chess, he probably was aspiring to a higher social l evel .

been morc appropriate.

As the economic power of the commercial classes began to ch allenge the
position of the aristocracy, th e nouveaux riches adop te d chess along with the
For his busy temperament, card playing would have

othel' social trappings of the landed gentry. The availabili ty of inexpensive

chess sets, th e lessons of medieval !vloralities, gro\'Ving self-confidence a nd a cer

tain amount of spafe time all combined to reduce the exclusivity of the game
and cncourag-c its geTluine fX)pularity in the to\vns. vVichmann records that
household inventories of the fifteenth and sixteen th centuries "almost invaria
bly inc l ud e a chess set. " One may question how many of these sets were simply

for display, and how many for actu al play. But for a certain p eriod during the
Renaissance the average man did take the game seriously.

Renaissance Resolution
During that period of active involvement, the newly-interested, together

with those of the old urder who continued (0 play, established the foundations
of modern chess-both the Tules or the game and the design or the pieces.
The basic rules in use today ",.;ere devi sed in the last quarter of the fifteenth

century. The Queen and Bishop, which had very limited moving potential in
the Middle Ages, were given the broad power t hey now enjoy. With these
ch an ges , the speed of the game increased, out of the rhy thm of medieval

feudalism into the pace of the

Age of Adventure and Discovery." This new

"

ability of the player to engage in

after slow

seriolls action i mmedi a tely, rather than only

and laborious opening moves, was a small but sign i fi can t reflection

of t he new

soci

ology

of the Renaissance-that comprehensive system of

LATER EUROPE

FIG.

35

The Chess Players. Venetian

canvas, 32118

( ?) , ca.

1590. Oil on

401%8 in, Berlin-Dahlem Museum, Berlin.

"Institutionalized Individualism" that integrated the psychologicaIIy con

sonant developments ofreligious protestantism, economic capitalism, political
democracy and aesthetic single-point perspective.
In this era of almost unparalleled creativity, designers generated a multi
tude of new shapes for the board. There were so many different types that it is
difficult to trace a consistent line of formal development. But the general
history of this revolution in chess design is clear. Between the fifteenth and
seventeenth centuries, the two earlier European styles (naturalistic and
schematic) formaIIy intermingled and finaIIy merged, completely replacing
the old Arabic tradition.
Totally naturalistic chesspieces are what one would expect to find in a
portrayal of Renaissance man, primarily unrelated to anything but himself:
proud, free-standing figures, molded with meticulous attention to the particu
lar details of visible reality (Fig. 36). But thc importance of pictorial pieces, as
serious designs, began to diminish.
Schematic pieces were more popular by the end of the fifteenth century.
Being both unpretentious and inexpensive, they appealed to the serious new
players. Once that preference had been expressed, the design problem was to
reduce the plethora of possible shapes to some common standards that any

4'

LATER EUROPE

two players could use (Fig. 3 7 ) . Players, preoccupied by the game, must be
able to identify their pieces instantly. Most of the new chess sets were too
abstract or undifferentiated to meet this fundamental requirement of chess
design. Either the schematic modulations were too subtle, or the regional
symbols were too esoteric for the average player. Moreover, the Occidental
humanist seems to have been uncomfortable thinking on a level of complete
abstraction, without any recognizable reference to nature.
The standard design that finally resulted at the end of the Renaissance was
a combination of schematic shafts and naturalistic symbols. The King and
Queen had become distinctly taller than the other pieces. Being easier to
identify, they ,,,,,cre designed morc abstractly. Primarily schematic, they usually
contained some symbolic reference to a naturalistic crown. For the Bishop,
Knight and Castle, which were so similar in height, a standard set of natural
istic symbols supported by schematic shafts slowly emerged during the fifteenth
and sixteenth centuries. This compromise between the naturalistic and the
schematic is known as "conventionaP' design.

FIG.

36

German : Bishop ( ?) . Early 16th

century. Limcwood, 4 1:'8 in. high. Germani

sches :"Iationalmuscum, uremberg.

Selected Renaissance chess sets) indicating formal variety and symbolic -in
consistency before advent of modern prototypes, These illustrations arc adapted from
the following books : A) Caxton, The Game and Playe ofthe CheJ.f8 (second edition); London,
ca. 148o. B) Publicius, Ars oratoria! Aug. Vindelicorum, 1492, c) EgenQlff, Des Schach-

FIG, 37

A.

'M'
,

z;ablcJ grunt/ick bideutung, Frankfurt, Iy6.

D) Mennel) Schach;;abel Spiel . " Oppenheim,

ca. J 520. E) Damio) QU&stro libra e da imparare.giocare a scacM et de Iipartiti, Rome, 1 5 1 2 .

F ) Ibid. (fifth edition), 1524-50. G ) Selenus, Das Sdwch-oder Konig-Spiel, Leipzig, 1 6 1 6 .

H) Ibid. I ) Philidor, Studies o/Chess, 1 80g . .I)

Murray, A Histoy o/Chess, London,

1913.

- .

In developing an acceptable set of symbols, the entire European tradition

of chess design ,'Vas drawn upon, including versions of the quasi-abstract
Arabic prototype (Fig. 37A). Trying to profit from the lessons oflathe-turning,
faltering with inconsistent abstract images and tending tmvard some kind of
naturalism, craftsmen attempted variation upon variation. Finally, a pair of
completely naturalistic symbols emerged. The head of a horse, which had
been in and Qut of use for severa] centuries, was recalled to service. Joining
i t on the board was the tower of a castle, first published between

1524

and

1550 (Fig. 37F). The success of these two symbols in conjunction was im
mediate. By the end of the sixteenth century a broad portion of the popular
imagination had been captured.
With the advent of the so-called "conventional" chesspiece and standard
symbols for the Knight and the Castle, the basic prototype for modern "Staun
ton" design (Fig. 37J) was established. Except for minor distinctions, the
Elizabethan chess set illustrated in Figure 38 could have been designed in the
nineteenth century.

Rococo Dissolution
During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, there was a sharp decline
in the general qualit y ofchess set design. :Forces ofsocial change 'were removing
chess from daily life, and therefore chess designers from meaningful contact
with reality. Playing cards, which came into general use during the fourteenth
century, began to challenge chess as the typical indoor recreation. Card
playing was less prolonged, less involved and less intellectually taxing.
Gradually, the chess set became a ,vorshipful, time-honored object resting
ornately on a table, utterly respected and utterly unused. I n the eighteenth
century, cards effectively replaced chess among both the middle class and
their good friends, the new commercial nobility. Chess playing came to be
regarded as one of the curious occupations of the few.

45

LATER EUROPE

Lacking the strict requirements ofchess playing as a formal discipline, chess

sets became further and further removed from the realities of the game. With
few exceptions, the general level ofdesign devolved into a profusion ofcharm
ing frivolities. Plump porcelain cherubs danced on cas tle turrets. Bishop-fools
flopped on ivory donkey backs. Bacchuses and bacchantes, b utterfly Queens
and flowering Pawns, mermaids and sea horses flitted and oozed around each
other in an orgy of delight. Here was the theatrical titillation of Rococo at its
height, and chess design at its nadir.

Neo-Classic Restoration
In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, sobriety returned to
chess set design, i n keeping 'with the severe formal characteristics of the Clas-

-'

. .:" '.

..

'

Opposite: : FIG. :18

English

chess set.

1nth

century.

I vor)' )

beson, Philadelphia. Hans Eworth painted the family of

ing

wjth imilar

piect!s between 1554

:2 liR

in. high. John F. Har

the third

ann 1570. Sec Hammond,

Lorn \Vindsor play

The 8MkofCheS5men

London, 1 9.,)O p. I 5:.

Above :

FIG.

39

Jan de Bray. The Clu:.!J Pia.J'er. Dutch,

Library, The Hague.

I 66 , .

Sepia, 3 1/.

5''il in. Royal

LATER EUROPE

sical Revival, and a nne\vcd interest in serious chess playing <:lrnong the newly
securc, post-revolutionary.. upper midd le class.
The Renaissanc:e tormula of mixing the scherIlatic and the naturalistic, a
product of the mixed psychology of the time, \vas conceptually and f(Jrmally
inconsistent, )"Jany chess set designers during the "Age of Reason" \vere
discontent with this i l logic:al compromise , and tried to create a IllOrc raLional

system offcll'ms. The result \vas a style of desigll Lhat is knuwn as aDircctoire"
(Figs , ip ,

/12 ) ,

Durin g t h e developme n t of this elegantly proportioned s ty le: considerable

attention \\as paid to the problern or replacing
ahstrz.c:tions. On(

o bviou s

solution,

sirnpl y

nat urali s tic

syrnbols with

diiIerentiating pieces by height,

was attr:mptcd I11any tirnes, This appruach produced

ehe ss

sets that

were

vlsllally attractive, logically consistent and fun ctionaHy faulty. As illustrated

in Figure 4 I , thL (l.uecll: Bishop and K n igh t are so similar that they arc likely
to he mistaken f()r one another in the heat of a game. :l\/lany players have cllrsed
t h e so-called "French" descendants of this des ign ) after having moved the
wrong piccf', l\'f orf' tha n one angry player is known to have inlproved this
design defect on the spot v,'ith the aid o fa pocketknife. T h e Knight illustrated

F](,.

to

HOIlOl/' J ) : nnni('l'. ThtCli/:'.1I PI/I)'ITI . FreIlch.

wood, () : " :> 1 2 \ in. }"1 us(:c dll Petit Palais, Paris.
'

ca.

r HCi:). Oil 0 1 1

FIG. 41

"Directoire" chess set. French, late 18th cen

tury. Drawing reproduced from CheH Alade Ea., Lon

don, 1797. A similar design reproduced in EnC)'clopidie
.'Hethodique) Paris, 1 792.

in Figure 45 is a typical, industrially produced piece from the period that has
been neatly sliced on hvo sides by an outraged Ciwner who never again would
mistake i t for a Bishop.
The more sophisticated sct illustrated i n Figure 42 is an excellent example
of the formal unification possible 'within the Directoire style \vithout the
sacrifice of necessary symbolism. The top of its handsomely demarcated
Knight (Fig. 43) has (he symholic slanting cut, which had been used to
distinguish the piece in the sixteenth century (Figs. 37c, 37D). By expand
ing the simple idea of a slant into a circularly contoured, dO'wn-sloping
"collar,H this designer integrated the traditional symhol into his formal
program of stacking disks i n a most ingratiating way.
There were many such successful, individual chess sets during this period.
Hm,vever, as during the Renaissance, no universal agreement could be reached
as to \vhat abstract SYIIlbols should represent which pieces. Just as the Bishop
in Figure 37H resembles the Castle in Figure 370, the Knight in Figure 43 has
an abstract outline similar to the Bishop i n Figure 44. In the latter, the quasi
naturalistic symbolism seems to refer to a Bishop's chalice, if not also to the
diagonal direction ofhis move. In England, almost exactly the same symbolism
was used for the Knight.
The interest in logical and formal consistency \vas not sustained long enough
to produce generally accepted abstract symbols. After the beginning of the
nineteenth century, the energies of serious designers turned to\vard finding a
satisfactory standard within the Renaissance convention of mixed symbolism
(Figs. 46, 47) . Efforts i n (his direction resulted i n one of the finest sets ever
produced, the famous "Staunton" design (Frontispiece, }'ig. 48).

Above :

(,'IG.

1.2

"Dircctoire" chess set.

18th CIlllury. Ivory, 3 / in.

high. John f. Harbeson, Philadelphia.
French , }ale

Left : FIG, 43

Knlght shown in liigurc

4'2 , 2 ';* i n , high.

Oppus i I I ' ahovf: :

(Braunschweig) :

44

( ;r:rmarl

Chess set

and boanl.

Fln.

Board and probably pieces by H .\.1 .

.

Schmidthammcr. 1 780- [800. Silver and

gilt. :H' in. high. ,Mr. and !\hs . Paul

Rei I'. ew York.

HDil'tctoirc" Knight.
French., late 13th c.ent.ury. Pa..wood,
2 % in. high. John F. Htbt:sOT1) Phila
delphia . .Formerly oW1)ed by John Bar
Right:

FIG.

45

tram of Philadelphia. Bartram's friend,

Benjamjn Franklin) owned a very simi
lar chess set in which the Knights also
were artlficially distinguished by knife

cuts. Bolh men) being ve.ry practical,

may have "improved" tne desigtt of
their chl!Ss Sets.

Top : FIG, 46 $panish ( ?) theSs set, Late. 1.8th-early 19th c.(,l'ltury. Cast bronze, otie
Mllsemn of Art, Ntw York, Gift of
side silvered, 4V in. high. The ?\:{etro
polian
'
Gustavus A. Pfeiffer> 1948.
:\fiddle: fIG. 47 Miltese chc.
... se\. Late ,'Bth-early '9th century. Made fur English
market. Reproduced from Hammond, Th, 1JWlk iijCh<J:ltntn, LCindOn, '.950, p. "54.
Bottom: FIG. 3 "'Staunton"' chSS: set. E:Tly Ig-th century ple,c.e.s, dOS:ely following
the original drawing. reproduced iA'thr" Frontispiece. Coul'te.sy of A. E. J. Matkel{.
Beel'onj London.
..

LATER ECROPE

It is said to have be en designed .in 1 839, by an unknown artist, and ,vas

registered at the Bri tish Patent Office in 1 349 by Howard Staunton, the Eng
lish chess. mas.tcr.
In thc CJ'CS of most chess players, the ';Staunton" design has never been
surpassed. n..'10st games, i ncl uding championship tournaments, sti ll are played
,vitlI SOlllC version of this desi gn . The pieces are quite re,varding to the touch
and respo nsive to the lllove. They arc i ndivi dual ly well proportioned, and
fo rmally interrelated uy Ineans of classical balusters crovvn.ing balls and
grooves that, in elevation, are either at the same height or at equally lneas
ured intervals. The gradu a ted height of the pieces although singularly UIl
expressive of re la ti v e pmver, contri bu tes to the architectonic composition of
the \vhoJc. The d ifferent levels of natural is tic SYllluolisIIl are distinctly
articulated. The Knight and the Castle are obviou s . The abstract cro\,,:ns that
cap the King and Queen a rc clear. The more abstract shape of a Bishop's
h eaddress also is app are n t .
Some neglected details of IHOdeI'n versions of this ico nography indicate
that functional syrnbolisrIl may be a n integral part of the naturalism. The
deep cut into the Bishop may suggest not only a ITliter but a diagonal nlove.
The points in the Queen' s crown, and the (Tenel s in the Castle's parapet, Illay
suggest both thc angles and the number of directions in ,vhich these pi eces call
lnove. This in terp re tation is possible for latcr variations in which the Queen's
cnnvn has eight points and the Castle's parapet has four crenels. But in the
o ri g i na l d nnviI l g there are Lvvelve points and six crcncls.
Hm,\'ever: it is knm,vn that the idea offull c tional form \vaS in the mind of at
least one nineteenth-century designer. The iiJU(rwing analysis of the design, of
which nothing else is known, was published by Liddel l :
,

Frederick S. Copley patented SOIIle

designs for chessmen i n 1864 that were

intended by their shape to shmv begi nn ers the rnoves of the pieces . The King
and Queen were cir cl es shmving their move in all di rec tions , hut the King
vvas only half the thickness of the Queen because of his limited po\vers. The
Bi shops 'were triangles, befitt i ng t h eir ob li qu e nlOve ; the K nigh ts octagons;
the Rooks squares, because of their straightforward and side\vise move; the
Pav-.' Ils hexagons. They had the familiar symbo l s of the pieces a lso stamped on
them, as a further gui de . The sides were d isting ui sh ed only by colour, so the
mF.n werF. unfitted fc)r play by th e blind . . . . No pieces of Copley s Geometrical
and C nl v ersal Chessmen are known to the au th ors . Search as to the shapes of
these early innovations has disclosed nothing.
,

'

CHAPTER V

Twentieth Century

GOD-MEN WF.RE APPROPRIATE

IN

ACIET

India. Kings and crowns and catles

""'ere appropriate in feudal Europe, and its romantic Victorian survival. But

the rel eva nce of medieval symboli sm in the twentieth century has been
seriously ques tioned by many designers, who have attempted to design chess
sets that are appropriate for our o\vn time. This search for \vhat is meaningful
about the ancient game in modern limes has produced whole ne\-\.' vocabularies

of form.

Dada and Everyday Forms

The history of modern chess sets b e gins with the Dada movemeltt in
general, and the intellectu al artifacts of Marcel Duchamp in partiCLllar.
Dada,

which

flourished in New York and Europe between 1 9 1 3 and 1 92 2 ,

was many things. Primarily: it was not so much a style of art as an attitude
alnon g artists. Negatively, the Dada artist:::; were full of contempt for the values
of a society that they felt was responsible for the horrors of vVorl d War L The
hypocritical ideals, complicated morals and rarefied aesthetics of Edwardian
Europe were fit targets for their h unlOfo1l5 atire and bitter invective. Positive
ly, in reaction to E dwardian artificiality, the

D adaists wefe overflowing with

an r.xtraordinary enthusi asm for alJ that is honest, direct and simple, for the
immediate exp e rience of the wonderfully reat.
The Dada artists

were

no t the first to do many of the things for

whi ch

they became notorioliS. Abstract compositions, collage technique, aut omati c

poetry, belligerent manifestos and extravagant "Happenings," all had oc
cu rred a number of years before. Rut most of these innovations took place as
isolated experiments in relative obscurity. The Dadaists orchestrated all these
newly developed instruments of art, and played their boisterous hrass band
down the center of:>.1ain Street, into the marketpl ace of ideas. Their pa intings,

COLON. PLAT}:; : n o .

49

Max Ernst. Kt, Q, B P, from set designed 1944, executed 195:1.

Boxwood, 5 in. high. ,"Villiam N . Copley, New York. Sf'C Figllres 66-68.

FIG. 50

for

:r-,:larcel

Duchamp. Stud,}'

The ehesJ Plqyers. September

October,

IgI I .

Charcoal,

I j x 23

in. Jacqueline I\tfonnier, Paris.

poems, publications and personalities simultaneously invaded New York,

Zurich, Hanover, Cologne, Barcelona and Paris. v\lhile more i mportant single
individuals hammered away at the principles of conventional art, the Dada
group puL dynamite around the solid block or stolid bo urgeois aesthetics, and
bIc\-\! it up in the public square.
To the CUIisternation of all v..ho thought of art as sOInething idealized and
remote, the Dadaists rummaged around in the neglected pockets of the every
day, discovering the richness of comrIlOIl realities. To their nc\vly opened eyes,
the hitherto unrealized aesthetic potential of their daily environnlent COIl
tinu ously burst like an endless string of colored firecrackers. They reached ri gh t
out into the middle of life, and brought the actual \vorId right back into the
Iuiddle ofart.
Taking hold of reality with a brand-ne\v grip, they conducted a revolution
in the history of seeing. Because their revolution \vas successful, \ve look at
things differently tod ay They made us av/are that the difference between
what \ye usually accept as "are' and \'\ihat we usually regard as "reality" can
be very sInall. The sensuous lines of an oil slick, the massive gnarls of a tree
stump or the sharp outline of a spark plug now can be "legitimately" enjoyed
as much as a painting.
lVforeover, in certain Dada situations, the traditional distinction b etwe en
art and reality can completely disappear. Being interested in chance relation
ships and what happens "in between" art and life, they placed natural or
rnanufactured "found ohjects" into the purely visual context of created or
fo rmed objects, and \"latched appearances change. By juxtaposing aspects of
the fonned and aspects of the found, the')" made art and reality overlap
interact and become part of the same thing.
Man Ray's Boardwalk of 1 9 1 7 (Fig. 5 1 ) is an excellent Dada example of
.

TWE:-l"TIETH CENTURY

55

chcs$uoard Jan Ray added some

paint and a few other Readymadc o qj ects These "found objects" wcre
formed, or slightly altered and put into an unfamiliar context. The chesshoard
is no longer a real board (one cannot play on the distorted squares), but part
uf a different entity tha t Duehamp called a n Assisted Readymadc. Hovering
transfornlcd reality. To a ;'ReadYTuade"

between art and lifc, Boardwalk suggests the reality of life by the presence of
physical artifacts, yet denies this suggestion by having rendercd these useful
things useless; and suggesLs the reality of art by the presence ora picture frame
FIG.

5I

25112

:\'1an Ray.

B()ardwalk.

1 9 1 7. Oil on 'wood with furniLure knobs and v"'ire,

28 in. Cloria de HI::J"I"t:ra, Paris. " The first work. ofhis I saw

wa

the tradtma rk

ofth New York Dada gruup. I t was a chssboarci ",,,hich he had made into a work or
art by adding 'anti-artist.ic' knobs mid bits or rope. " H<tns Richtf:f,
art,

r\cw York, 1965, p. 96.

Dada: art and (mti

TWENTIETH f:F.NTlJRY

and paint, yet denies this suggestion by the fact that the paint has done nothing
more than transfonn real checkered squares into a useless configuration. One
becomes a\vare of the interacting reality of art and life as one realizes that the
patches of material (which look "real" but are not) at the upper right are
visually balanced by the long, heavy rhythm of the "unreal" painted square
distortions at the bottom ; that while the knobs do not pull open real drawers,
their placement visually pulls open the composition; that while thcwirc is tying
the knobs together i n an ostensibly useless way, it is visually holding the com
position together.
I n short, Dada interchanges art and everyday experience by making
objects that arc useful in life also function formally and symbolically. Thanks
to Dada, absolutely anything is something an artist can use; any rnaterial can
become part of a painting or part of a chess set.
Many Dada artists played chess. The man rIlost responsible for their interest
was Jvlarcel Duchamp, \vho gave up painting for chess in the carly f920'5, and
becmne an internationally respected player as a melnber of the French
championship team during the 1 930's. Duchamp's first attcmpt to design a
chess set was a minor effort (Fig. 52), relat.ing more to chess than to Dada.
His enthusiastically executed drawings are only slightly abstracted conven
tional symbols, a uurst of energy rather than a full-ulown idea. His first
executed chess set (Fig. 53), exhibited in 1 914, is a completely dcveloped, i f
quiet, example of an Assisted Readymade. Ducharnp bought a standard,
commercial chess wallet lor five dollars. Not quite content with the form of the
symbols, he redesigned them, had them printed, and put the paper between
the celluloid himself. Being a serious player, he also was annoyed that the
pieces of the standard set sometimes slipped out of their slots. To prevent this,
he added the head ora straight pin to each square. With this minor alteration,
he (almost in adve rte ntly ) formally unified the entire surface of the board. The
pinheads are there because they are usefu l ; by chance, their gridlike relation
ship forms a pleasant sup(';rimpocd pattern that sinlultaneously denies and
affirms the original pattern of the board. Like much of Duchamp's work, his
chess set is as much a functional desig-n as a 'work of art," an interesting
intellectual exercise that happens to be visually attractive.
More in the boldly blatant spirit of Dada's use offound objects i n ostensibly
incongruous situations is Alexander Calder's chess set (Fig. 54). His un
pretcntious design is a happy hodgepodge of fully formed things (K ni gh t ) ,

1 &

"I

..,

1
Above; FH;, ;)2

l\:farccl Duchamp. Designs for chcsspiccrs. 1 92 ::2

foUl' sheets of card, each carcl g

9 in. The i'VluscuIIl oflocll'rn /\rL ::'-J"ny \'ork. Kather

ine S. Dreier Bequest.

Below: FIG. 53
pinhcads, 6 III

l'vfarr:r:I Duchamp. Pocket chessboard. 1 944

x

( '.' ,: . ()eTlClI and ink 0 1 1

( ?,I . Leather, celluloid and

{ Iii! in. :fr. and Ivlrs. IVIarcd Duchamp, New York.

l\bove : FIG

14

Alexander Calder. Chess set. Before 1944. \rVood) bent melal and

screws. r,,1 r. and Mr!>. Marcel Duchampl :\lew York.

Below : FIG. 55

Rit.:hard Kamhollz. ChN..,\ set. ] 949. Painted nuts)

bolts and

WhereabouL.;; unknown. Courtesy of The .\-luscum ofl\:lodern A.rl, Ne\v York.

sercws.

Above: FIG. 56

Arthur Hammer. Ches:;

:;t

and board. 1967. Painted nut:; awl bolts

on aluminum board, 6Vz in. high. Court('y of the: designer.

Below : fiG. 57

l\'l ichel C;ui no. Chess set and boarrl. 1967. AU1 0TT10hik engine parts,

bronzed and chromed, on an aluminum hoard, 9'" in. high. Courtesy of Gall erie Lt.
Cloche Paris.

T W E N" T 1 E T H CENTCRY

60

slightly formed things (Bishop) and simply found things (King and Queen) .
Calderls use of the straight screw and the eye screw for King and Queen is
an excellent exarnple of how a Dada eye can discover i n ordinary everyday
surroundings something as appropriate for a chess set as universal symbols for
male and female.
The possibility of making a useful chess set out of objects as simple as nuts
and bolts has intrigued a number of designers. One of the most successful of
these sets was designed by Richard Kamholtz in [ 949 (Fig. 55 ) . Kamholtz
developed the idea Calder used into a logically consistent system of distinct
forms. His selection of symbols is particular1y attractive. The King and Queen
are crisply crowned. The Bishop and Castle are unmistakable reminders of
their prototypes. The Knight, with its t\,vistable top, has a built-in suggestion
of how it moves on the board.
At an opposite extreme from Kamholtz\ light, quick-moving pieces is
Arthur Hammer's seventeen-pound chess set (Fig. 56). Conceived for those
\",ho enjoy making authoritat.ive moves, these monumental pieces arc sym
bolically complete ,,,,ith the traditional bishop's mitered peaks, the iInage of a
helmeted warrior and the parapet of a castle. The only difficulty with expand
ing the nut-and-bolt idea to this scale is thal the problem of finding formally
consistent bases becomes pronounced.
Most of the chess sets that usc the Dada principle of having everyday
objects represent something other than themselves continue the history o f
naturalistic symbolism. No matter ho\v abstract, these pieces are selected or
designed to represent traditional figures. But some of Dada's descendants have
linked the idea of COOlmon objects with functional symbolism. Armanls chess
set (Fig. 58) , for example, carries the nut-and-bolt idea to a higher level of
abstraction by using only one generalized form. The different nature of each
piece is indicated either by height, hy mass or by a sanguinely symbolic slice.
The Dada tradition, of course, is not limited to nuts-and-bolts designs,
\."hieh are merely typical. The point of Dada is that eveIything in the \lvorld is
available. One can make a working chess set out of anything. The pieces can
be as elegant as bronze, with symbols as remotely related as the similarity be
tween the move of the Knighl and the move of the Pawn (Fig. 5 7 ) . Or the
symbols can be as obvious as maps on forms as unpretentious as pebbles (Fig.
59). The only limitation is one's imagination.

58

Arman (Fernandez). Chess set. 1968. l'.'le t a1 . Courtesy ofthe rleignn.

Below : .FIG. 59

Bill Epton. Chess set. 1966. Carved beach stones, 2 1/2 in. wiue. Courtesy

Above :

FIG.

of l\1ultiples, Inc., !';ew York. Size lndicatcs rdative importance of pieces.

6.

TWF.NTIETH CE:"-ITI.IRY

Surrealism and Irrational Forms

Surrealism grew out of Dada, \vith a number of the Dada artists j oining the
Surrealist movement.

B o th

movements were fascinated by the acstheti c pos

si bilities of chance discoveries. Both focused on the relationship of imagination

and newly discovered realities. But the fundamental diflerence between the
two movements was greater than all thc simila rities

While the Dadaists

experimented with the physical reality of the external world, the Surrealists
expl ored the psychological realit y of the internal world.
The typical unit of a Dada painting or chess se t is the straightforward
presentation of an arresti ngly obvious trans posi tion The typical unit of a
.

Surrealist painting or chess set is the evocative elucidation of a poeti c analogy.

The Dada element is snatched off the si dewal k . This public image tends to be
specific, simple and unmistakably clear. The Surrealist el emen t is exorci se d out
of the subconscious. This private im.age tends to be general, complex and
richly vague.

In their painting and s culpture the Surrealists were as sens i tive to the
similarities bet\'\'ccn chess and l ife as the ancient Arabs. J\lan Ray added to his
abstract chesspicccs the image of a human confron ta tion in his battle of the

Elld Game (Fig. 60). The Killg Playillg with the Queen by Max Ernst ( Fig. 6 I ) , and
The Heart Players by Roberto Matta (Fig. 62), extend the lifelike allusion to

Opposite:

FIG.

60

l\.1an Ray.

End (;mn. 1 946.

Oil on ca.nvas, 2 %

29 1/2 in. lvh-. and

Ml's. Daniel 1attis, Chappaqua.

Above: FIG. 6 ,

l\.1ax Ernst. The King Pla,'Yitlg with the QueeTl. '944. IJronze. 381h in. high.

The M.useum of Moderrl Art, New York. Girl or 1r. and Mrs. John de Me-nil. Exhibit
ed in "The Imagery of Chess," as The King a.fChess.

FIG. h2

Roberto !\1"atta. The Heart PIOJ'CTS. 1945. Oil on

canvas,

77

99 in.

\OVhcrt"abollts unkno.......n. Discusst:cl in \VilLiam Rubin, lV/alta, ew York, The

Museum of Modern Art,

r 957)

p. 7. Three-dimensional chess., which seems to

hav been introdu('(xl in 190B, is tOO complicated to be discussed

length here. (See Fjgure 79). The suqjcct

was

si mpl e

any

taught at the New School for'

Social Rt"se-ardl by Ervand Cr-orgc Kohetlianlz. \vho publislud

pamphl t:t called Space-CheH in T 9J"2 .

chess beyund the level of the

at

:J

short

narrative, into the wurld of primitive

subconscious suggestion. At another level of the interrelationship between art

and lile, many of the figures of Rene Magrittc overlap human symbols with
c h ess

symbols. luch of this sym bolic conlplexity also exists in their ehess sets.

What is remarkable aboul Lhese forms i , that they are well designed as play
ahle chess sets and are not merel y min iatu re

sculp tu re .

One of the earliest Surrealist chess sets was designed by :\-lan Ray in f926
(Fig. 63) . I t is an intere'ting essay on the possibilities of mixed symbolism.
'lost of the pieces arc gconletric. Some of this geometric symbolism can be
understood

as

' :funetional,ll in a .Hauhaus sense. For example, the square form

of tbe Castle suggests the corner position and the directness of its move. But
some of these geometric symbols are more naturalistic than functional. Like

T\\o'ENTIETH CENTURY

Calder's chess set) the forms of Man Ray's King and Queen reJate to universal
symbols for male and female, without any specific reference to chess.
For his Bishop and Knight, lVlan Ray dre\\' on two sources as diverse as
Surrealism itself. The shape of his Bishop has a direct ancestor in a four
teenth-century Nordic Pawn (Fig. 3 2 ) . His Knight is

Dada-Surrealist

transfiguration. Partly, it is simply the scrolled end of a violin or cello, plucked

from liCe and plopped on the chessboard. Partly, it is an abstract reduction of
a horse's head.
The unusual character of the Knight has been a stumbling block for many
who have tried to design a chess set with geometric forms. In the wake of the
Staunton tradition, it has been difficult for most designers to avoid some
reference to nature. Despite the strict discipEne of :Nian R ay ' s design, the
unity promised by the intensity of his effort is not entirely achieved. Although
the individual pieces are quite successful, the total design is not integrated.
Formally, the size of the spherical Pawns is out of proportion. Conceptually,
the auempt to mix naturalism and abstraction simply continues the Renais
sance formula. Despite the individual interest of his Knight as a r.hesspiece, it
is not in character with the rest of the deslgn.
A thoroughly consistent and brilliantly simple solution was designed
about 1Cl38 by Yves Tanguy (Fig.

64).

In the Dada spirit of making some

thing out of an everyday reality, Tanguy took a broom handle and carved
out of it some of the purest abstract shapes that have ever graced

chess table.

The design is lJnified by two characteristics : every piece is cylindrical; every

piece is cut in the simplest possi ble way. The achievement of the design is the
successful use of "functional," angular syrnbolisnt within the severe restriction
of pure sculptural forms.
The Castle is a straightforward cylinder. The King is a taller cylinder, in
keeping wilh the close relationship of the two pieces in actual play. The
atypical nature of the Knight is convincingly expressed by an obliquely
truncated cylinder. The diagonal move of the Bishop is sliced into its shape.
The moving potential of the Queen, who can move on the angles of a Bishop
or a Castle, is symbolized s_u ccin<..:tly by being crowned with those h\'o angles.
Not all the chess sets or paintings in the Dada-Surrealist tradition are as
serious asathers. Calder's chess set (Fig. 54), for example, is somethingofa pun :
checkers, plus

few things, equals chess. Some of these lesser '\vorks of art"

capture that special kind arjoy une feels at the mornent of spontaneous dis-

T \VRKTmTH C E N T U RY

66

TWENTIln'll CETURY

covery.

One must be careful not to approach such

8.

work \\'ith too much

seriousness. It can be fragile, the way a lyric or a bubble of air is fragile. If

one's ae:sthctic or rational hands grab at it too roughly, it \.\7111 pop.

If conceived

with a smile, it must be received with a smile or i t cannot smile back.

Julien Levy's design (fig. 65) suggests some of the spontaneity that ac
companied its conception. In a recent letter, answering an inquiry hy the
author, Levy recalled the circumstances surrounding the birth of his egg

shapes i n the summer of 1 9 44 :

Max Ernst and I [wanted] to play chess o n the beach. W e drew a chessboard
in the sand and tried using pebbles and shells. They were difficult to distinguish
as pieces. I bought some plaster, intending to cast blocks \-vith rounded bot
tom s , then

carve the blocks. At breakfast, I

decided to cast in the egg-shaped

empty shells from my soft-boiled eggs. I cast for several mornings thereafter,
and rnean\'\.- hile had the idea of preserving the egg form in variations for all the
chessmen. Max Ernst managed to swipe some ormy plaster and in .
two \\'eeks . . . he \va not only making his o\VTl chess et

but,

about

with additional

plaster ii'om the store, a \vhole series of large sculptures that occupied his
working hours for

the

rest of that summer.

The work of that summer prompted Levy to organize an exhibition at his

New York gallery in December called 'The J rnagery of Chess,"
all the interrelated elements of painting,
design, serious design and

combini ng
sculpture, assemblage, humorous

blindfold chess competition, in which George

1926. Silver, 4 in. high. '-I 'h(: l\:fuscum of r...'iodcrn

Art, New York. Gift of Abby Aldrich Rockefeller. Man Ray has designed several other'
Above : FIG. 63

Man Ray. Chess set.

chess sets.

Below : FIG. 64 Yves '['anguy. Chess set. Dr:sign(:d before 1939 ; this replica executed
ca. 1930. Painted wood, 3 % in. hig-h. The I\-fuseum ofl'"fodcrn Art, ='Jew York. Gift of
l\:frs. Yves Tanguy. This set i s a replica of one carved from a broom handle that Tanguy
gave to the scuLptor Brancusi before Leaving Paris. Discussed i n James Thrall Soby,
Yr)es Tanguy, New York, The !vfuseum oL \'1odern Art, 1955, pp. 18-19.

(;8

TWENTlETU CEN T U RY

Ju1ien Levy. Chess set.

FIr.. 65

1 944. Plat(';r pmlotype., not in production. Oourtesy

of the designer. This photog-ra.ph "is somewhat misleading. The bottom of each piece
actually has the J'ollmled contoUr of an eggshell, suitable for pJaying in santi. For this
photograph) the picc(';s wcn placed in siallds to keep them upright.

Koltanowski (blindfolded) played simul taneous games against Alfred Barr,

fax Ernst, Frederick Kiesler, Julien Levy, Dorothea Tanning and Gregory
Zilboorg, with Marcel Duchamp as referee. It was the most importan t
exhibition of its kind evcr held. Playable chess sets wcre contributed by Du

champ

54), Ernst ( Figs. 49, 66-68) ,

NogUChi, Tanguy, Hcythum and Zilboorg.

(Fig. 53), Calder (Fig.

72), Man Ray,

Filipowski (Fig.

The most important chess set was by Max Ernst. Soon after that day on the
beach, he began to work on his own design. The first highly figurative plaster
models (Fig. 66) were molded into more appropriate chess forms in time for
thc exhibition (Fig. 68).
Physically, the solid rounded forms arc pleasant to handle and easy to move.
The Pawns are responsive to the light grasp of two fingers. The other pieces.
receive the lift or push of a moving

ha n d

at any point -high, middle or low.

Vi$ual1y the spatial mociuJations among the pieces are rhyt hmic from every
point of view. Because of the sculptor'S sensi tivity to the many possibilities of
theule

and

variationl the eye is never bored as it weaves. through the intcrrcla

[ionships of thick and thin, short and tall, s harply protruding and sensuously

modeled forms.

69

TWE)lTIETH CENTURY

FlO.

66

fax Ernst. Chess set. 1944. Plasler

model. \\Ihereabouts unknown. Reproduced

from Chess Revicw, january, '945, p. 4

The uncleI' angle orthe Pawn reverses itself and rises, scoops in for the space

of a finge-ftip and continues dosi ng

as a

softly rounded cone. The lower part

of the Castle is again two truncated cones back to back, topped with the strong
horizontal of an i nverted cone, suggesting both a tower and the broad straight
pH:mcs of the move. The powerful eui've of the crescentshapcd Knight sug
gests both a horse's head and the circ.uitous character of the move. The
co nfiguration

of the Bishop, which is related to medieval European designs,

suggests both a bishop's hat and its two-way

di Giorgio's

Che", Players of about

moving

poten tial. (See Francesco

'485 in the Metropolitan Museum of Art,

l'iew York.)
The forms of the. King and Queen also express how they move. The Kin
has the weighty bulk of the Castle and the diagonal cut suggestive of the
Bishop's move. The body of the Qu een is a doubling ofthe conical composition

of the Castle with a diagonal slice in her "face." Traditionally, of course, the
King, as [he most i mportant piece, is taller than the Queen. However, the
Queen is by far the most powerful piece in the game. In actual play, the King
tends to he almost a "drone bee . ' J Intent on portraying the realities of the
game , Ernst, FreudianlYl reversed the traditional roles, making his humanoid

TWENTIETH CENTURY

Above :

1'10.

67

70

lax Ernst. Chess set. Designed 1944, executed 1958. Boxwood, 5 in.

high. "Villi am K. Copley, Nnv York. Several versions of this design have beeh produced
in different materials.

Below :

FIG.

68

Max Ernst. Chess seL Designed 1944, executed 1945. Boxwood .5 in.

high. Philadelphia Museum of Art, Gift ofJohn F . Harbeson.

T\...F.NTIETH CENTURY

Queen

the. most dominant piece on his chessbo ard.

One would expect to find such rich ly articulated symbols in the work of a
Surrealist art is t.

Bu[. such a comple tely

balanced fusion of chess symbols and

life symbol s is' remarkabl e . Even more remarkable is that Ernst was able to
orchestrate this symph ony of' symbo ls with such extraordinary s ubtlety that
all this formal and icono!(caphic music is only softly played in thc background

of w hat is first and foremos t a chess set.

Bauhaus and Functional Forms

Perhaps the most important influence on the design of chess sets in the
twentieth century has been the Bauhaus, ""hich flourished in Germany be
tween 1 9.1 9 and 192ft As wlth Dada and its artists, the Bauhaus was more ofa
'

spirit than a style. The international student body of this design schoul was
tra ined simul taneously by arti sts and craftsmen i n a progra m that embraced

everything visual, everything rn aterial, ev erything spiritual a.nd particularly

'

the n atu re of pos'dble interrelationships.

The Bauhaus teachers established this comprehensive program to sensitize

its students to the necessi ty of machine-age production-the Drily way in
w h ich well-designed products could be made available to c very level of
society. The emphas is was first on finding a fu nctio nal so l utio n to a design
problem} then working out the simplest possibl e form to express that solu tion .
Architects and industrial d esigners taugh t not " beauty " but. the articulation

.of working parts in the simpl es t, least expensive way possibl e with contempo
rary materials. Artists t augh t not Hart'" but the imainative mani pulation of
expressive form. Craftsmen taugh t not virtuosity hut the atti tude of care and
sons that could be used not only on the
the tech nique of simple detailing-les

ann of a chair carved out with a traditional tool J but on the structure of an
entire chair pun ched ou t b y a machi"l'le.
The chess set that Josef Hartwig d esigned at the Bauhaus in 1924 (Fig. 69)
.'is a miniature portrait of th ese design principles . He rej ected the traditional

idea of figures symbolizing the names of the pieces . In kee ping with the social
ethic of the Bauhaus, Hartwig was interested i n what the pieces actually were,
not what names they had. He based his design on the operating reality of how
the pieces func[ioned, how th ey moved on the board, rather than the litera ry

associations their names could bring to mind.

Focusing with strict discip l ine on, function and function alone , h e articu lated

Abov e : FIG. 69
wood, 1 3/4 in.

Joscf Hanvi1ig. Chess sd. Final ....ersion. I9:.l3-24. Natural and stained

high. Tht!

Museum of Modern Art, Ne.-v York. Gift

of Alfred H.

Barr

Jr. Executed by the Bauhaus Carpe ntry vVol'ksbop, Germany. Reproduced in Hayer,

.Bm.(haus 19[9 1928, Ne.w York, Th ::\1uscum of Modern Arll 1 93B, p. 44; Hartwig,
Iieben und kfein,ungm des Bildhauers, Frankfurt-am-Main, 1955, p. !.o! S ; Schcidig, Crafts.
uIlhe r1'eimar Bauhaus 191!)-1924, Nc",,' York, 1967, p. T4.
Oppositf:: FIG. 7()

Josef Harhvig. Chess set. 19Q 3-24. Pn'!iiminul'Y version. Chf:s"

table by H. )J6sseit. 1925. Red beechwood: partly stained black. \Vhereabouts un

known. Courtesy of The Ivluseum of Modern ArL, 1\'ew York.

a solution in the formal language of simple geometry. He uscd the cube to

express the fact that the Castle moves on lines parallel to the edges of the
board ; thc right angle to express the turn in the move of the Knigh t ; and the

"Xl! for the douple diagonal move of the Bishop. The taller royals are more
complex, as their power is greater and their moving potential more complicat
ed. Ho\... the King can move is- expressed by a small eube set diagonally on a

larger cube. He may move one square straight (as suggested by the large cube,
,,,,hieh is t h e form of the straight-nl0ving Castle) or one ,square diagonally (as
suggested by the diagonal placement of the upper cube, reminiscent of the

TWENTIETH CENTURY

74

moving potential or the Bishop). The unlimited moving potential of the Queen

,is symbolized by a sphere, which is not only visually u nl imi ted by direction,
but free from the empathetic associations of weigh t and mass which character

ize cubes.
It is a handsome design, unusually well thoug-ht out. One of the most
interesting pieces is the Knigh tl \.vhich has exactly the" s,ame profile no nlatter
on \vhich of its six sides it is si tting . Less succcssful is the detailing of the Bishop.

The four pointed ends of the ,X" would have been more in the spirit of
simplicity had they been squared off. Moreover, b ecause the symbolism or the
King and Queen is no t of the same formal order as the :symbolisn1 ohhe other
pieces, the whole design does -not m.e_et the logical test of cubic forms : neatly
fitting together in a box

(ef.

Figs. 70 and 7 1 ) .

Higtoriclly, i t is interesting that Hartwig did not arrive at the remarkable

simplicity of this design without first passing th rough

"

clas sical " phase, in

which he put h is pieces on a variety of little pedestals (Fig. 70). It took several
attempts to filter the essential from the unnecessary, and fit t he fundamental
iilto tigh tly compact forms .

Richard Filipowski's chess set (Fig. 7 2 ) , while retaining a number of Hart

wig's ideas, makes di st inct -contriblltion to the vocabulary of mode:m chess

sets . The pure cylindrical Queen develops Hartwig1s idea for circularity jnto
another, equally suggestive form. The eight directions in which the King

Chcss sct shown in Figure 75, packaged in dear

plastic box, :2 x 6 Ii 4 in.
FIC. 7 J

FIG.

72

Richard Filipow:!ki. Ch(' set. I943. Acrylic resin, 3 in. high. Courtesy of the

designer. Reproduced in Ioholy-Nagy,_ Vision in A-{otion, Chicago, 1947 .

can move, subtly symboli zed by Hartwig, arc graph ically scored on top of

Filipowski's piece. Although this literal approach

t6 expressing a piece's
Inovernent is not consi s ten t \'lith the less explicit general design of this particu
Jar set, it is, huweverl qujte. val id in j-telr an d has since been well develop ed in
other chess sets (Fig. 73) .
The si ngu lar achievement in Filipo wski 's set is the design of his- Knight.
While all the other pieces could be made ofwood, the form ofthe Knight derives
front the exp loration of a flew material, acrylic resin. The firm twist in the
body ofthc horse, both simple and sensuous, is par ticularly appropriate to the
material's 'plastic potential. Moreover, the t\vist is not an arbitrary exercise
in sculpturally satisfying convolutions. I t is

usual turn in

the Knigh t's

convincing symbol for the

un

move (compare with the twisting screw by Kam-

TWENTIETH CENTURY

hoitz, Fig. 55). What makes this Knight an excellent design is not only that
it is a technically interesting investigation ofa new material, or that it is a form
that clearly expresses a function, 01' that it is pleasing to the eye, but that itis all
three simultaneously.
Gerard Ifert and Ellen Marx have collaborated to produce a handsomely
proportioned set that carries the idea of "scoring" the pieces to a logical
conclusion (Fig. 74). The direction and numberofpossible moves are expressed
in a boldly graphic way. Cut into the rectangular blocks are abstract plans of
moving potential ; shallowly cut pieces move a limited distance; deeply cut
pieces move an unlimited distance.
It is possible to object to the similarity between the symbol for the Knight
and the symbol for the King and Queen. But in general, this design is a suc
cessful attempt to integrate the visual symbols used by the mind and the
physical blocks used by the hand. Most designs that try for such an inter
relationship simply draw or paste a two-dimensional decal on top of the block,
which is ornamentation rather than integration.
The Hert-Marx chess set and one by the author (Fig. 75) approach the
problem of expressing movement from entirely different points of view. Ifert
and Marx lifted the whole two-dimensional plan from the. board, then extend
ed that flat plane into three dimensions by sinking it into a block. The result
is a loss ofmass. What the- author abstracted from the plan

\...as

only the single

dominant angle of the moving potential, using that angle in the elevation of a
solid block. Xn this way, the visually symbolic and the physically movable are
not two separate things existing side by side in space, but two inseparable
aspects of a single thing. The result is not graphic lines within masses, but
graphic masses (Fig. 76).
The Castle, moving online, parallel to the edges ofthe board, is rectangular
ly shaped. The Knight, with an L-shaped move, is Lshaped. The Bishop,
moving on a forty-five-degree diagonal, is diagonally shaped. The Queen, hav
ing all the moving potential of two Bishops and a Castle, is formed as an open,
visually active configuration of two Bishops and a Castle.. The: King, having
only a limited part of the moving potential of the same three pieces, is formed
as the c1osed, visually inactive converse of the Queen. Moreover, modulations
in the volume ofmass are calculated to indicate relative importance. Although
the three pieces have the same height, the equally strong Knight and Bishop
have only three-quarters of the mass of the more powerful Castle.

TWETIETH CENTURY

77

These pieces are intended to have the look and feel of little packages of
power. The interlocking blocks are packaged to reflect the essential nature of
the game-rational recreation, played with a simple system of basic units
whose fields offorce continuously interact in subtle, complex patterns (Fig. 7 1 ) .
In this chapter i t has been possible to present only a brief selection of the
functional designs that have sought out what is basic to the game (the relative
significance and moving potential of each piece) , then encased that elemental
force in simple self-expressive forms. Having distilled from the naturalistic
tradition of chess design the operating fundamentals of the game, these
designers believe that draping a simple gaming piece in the costume of a queen
is

as

appropriate as dangling Gothic traceries from an I-beam.

Above :

FW.

73

Gerard lfcrt and ElleIl Marx. Chr:l\s set. 196j. Nautral woods, 31)J.e: in.

high. Courtesy of the designers.

Hel m...,. :

Fl(';'.

74

Diagram analyzing symbolism in Figure 73

Above : FIG. 75

Lanier Graham. Chess set. Designed IgG6, executed. 1967. Natural

walnut and limba wood, 3 Jh in. high. The "Museum of Modern Art) New York. Gift of
the designer.
Below :

FIG.

76

Diagram analyzing ymbolism in Figure 75.

D
=:J '

'
,
,
,
,
l.. _ _ _ _

i" ill

I
I
'
I
I
I
I. _ _ _

.J

,
,

,
,

,
,
,
,
,
,
_ _ _ .J

,
,

'
'

:
I

:
I

--- -

,
I

!
:

."

,
!-

\ l....
i ....,
. --> u,-r-\"'/'

/"

r " '6
" '- , ;

"

"'
,

"

." .

;"

.',"

---

- - -

( TV

--

/ -:::--___----

.--

/'

;
I

FIC. 77

Rober t C.

Caples_ Study for a chess set. 1967. Not in production.

Courtesy of the designer. All the pieces of each 'side fit into their King.

CHAPTER VI

Conclusion

TRADITION IS ONLY ONE

ROOT

of current reality. What has taken place is only

one influence on what is taking place. The other influence is contemporary

sensibility. Because traditions arc not self-generating, each generation or
culture confronts what has happened, decides if it should be continued at all,
and if so in what form.
Throughout history, the nature of the game of chess and the design of chess
sets have undergone many transformations. The ancient Indians carved their
sets as realistic figures. The sympathetic Persians maintained the tradition.
But when this naturalism was confronted with the nonrepresentational doc
trine ofIslam, it was transformed into highly abstract variations.
The Persian idea ofa Vizier, meeting a similar Arab culture, remained the
same. When the idea of a powerful person standing beside the central figure
was confronted with the romantic culture of medieval Europe, that chesspiece
became a queen. Arab camel riders became knights on horseback, and turrets
on Indian elephant backs came down and became castles.
In medieval Europe, not only the names of individual pieces, but the whole
concept of the game was altered. What had been expressive of an Oriental
army was transformed into what was expressive of an Occidental state.
The quality and quantity of abstract chess sets in the twentieth century
indicates that another fundamental change may be taking place in the general
concept of the game_ The traditional "Staunton" design, with its naturalistic
images of medieval armies, suggests a game between combatants who enjoy
the winning of battles. The new designs, with their abstract images of intel
lectual forces, suggest a game between contestants who enjoy the process of
thinking. With these pieces on the board, it is possible to play a game of chess
without also playing a game of feudalism or a game of war.
Only the future will be able to tell how such changes in thinking about the
game may affect the design of chess sets. In the meantime, the new tradition of
simple abstract shapes is developing. Some designers, reflecting the continuing
relevance of feudal forms, are creating elegant chess sets with romantic sug-

s.

CONCLUS[Ol'\

gestions ofmedieval pageantry (Fig. 7 7 ) . Some designers are producing techni

cally brilliant essays on the idea ofa chess set as a package of tools for the mind
to play with (Fig. 78). If the idea of the chesspiece as a pause-point for the
mind, a simple visual spot in a logical configuration, continues to develop, the
next kind of chess set may be a board oflights on the face of a computer.

Charles Perry. Chess set. 1967. Nickel-plated brass! fj in. high. The l\:!useum
of Modern Art, New York. Gift of Richard H. '\-"addell. Both sides are the ame color;
FIG.

78

the distinction is made by the formal opposition of cylindrical form versu rcctartgular
form. All the pieces on each side are contained inside thei r interlocking King and
Queen. The connection comes apart wiul a simple push and twi!tt. {cdjeV"al symbolism
is used -throughout the design, from the
Bishop's miter to the heart ofthe Queen.
-.
- --

cross-cut

opening in the Knight's visor and

"V
/1"'-

"
I

"

.- -.

- -

79

FIG.

Lanier Graham. Studies for computorized chess sets. Above: : b

r
,...o-dimcn

sional piece, (C, K\, B, Q, K) ; page 84: three-dimensional pieces (B, C, B, C, B).

1 966-68. Based OIl the simple logi c of a computr, these systems of symbols are intended
to

represen t the potenti':l.l of each piece, from the p oint of origin in the center of the

symbol to (and/or through) all the points of possi blt niOvment. As

hvo

dimcnsion al

"graphics)" the pieces could move as lighted images on a computer's display board.
People playing standard chess with such a selon acomputor-assisted board ,"",auld enjoy

a number of advan taKes. They could consult the computor on the probable advantages
of possib le mo,,;-es , p rofit from an ( ' i nstant -replay" on part of a tape of the game jusl

finished and then study similar problems in an archive of historical games. In the
meantime, the same symbols can b e used now for everything from magnetic pocket
size sets to standard notation

The same design principles can be employed for three-dimensional pieces. Such sets
can be used on two-dimensional boards, but would be part icularly appropriate for

Space-Chess) played on a "board" composed of several standard boards, with pieces

movi ng through three-dimensional space (See Fig. (;2) , A computor CQuld

change

the

image of t.vo-dimensional pieces on a two-dimensional hoard inlQ lhe image of thret:

dimensional pieces on a three-dimensional board at the push of a button

Chessmen. Xcw York: Harcourt, Brac,

Selected Bibliography
This bibliography is limited to books in
English that discuss the design of chess
sets in a primary or specifically relevant
way.

'lbey are listd chronologically.

1937
HAMMONDj ALEX

The

Book of Chessmen.

London: Arthur Barker, I95n.

'VrOHMANN,

HANS and

SIEGFRIED.

Chess,

More comprehensive bibliographies may

The stor,.y of chesspieces from antiquity to

be found in Murray and 'Vichmann.

modern times. London : Paul Hamlyn,

COPLEY,

FREDERICK

S. Improved Geometri-

(at and Univer.ral Chessmen. Stapleton,

1 964.
HARBESONJ JORK

F. ]v'ine Centuries ofChess

I 86.{.

men, The Collection of John F. Harbeson.

CCLlN, Sn:,>vART, Chess ([nd Playing Card!;.

Philadelphia: Philadelphia l\:luseum

Staten Island,

vVashin gton , D.C., Governm ent Print

ing Office., 18g8.

of Art, 1 964.
\VILKINSON

--. Games of the JI/orth American Indians.

JESSIE

CHARLES K.

and

DENNIS,

MC-"\AB. Chess: East and West,

vVashington, D. C . , Guvernmen i Print

Past and Present, A Selectionfrom the. Gu.r

ing Office, J907.

tavus A. Pftiffer Colle.ction. Xe,," York :

J\,1URRAY,

H.J.

R. A HistorJ' ofChess. Lon

don: Oxford University Press, 1 9 1 3 .

LIDDELL,

DONALD

GUSTAVUS A.

!\:[
and

\,,;jth

PFEIFFER,

MAUNOURY,

J.

The :Mtropolitan Museum of Art,

1968.

l\:lAcKETT-BEEsoN, A. E . ] . Chessmen. Lon

don : \Veidenfeld & Nicolson., 1968.

/ /
/ /
/ / / /
/
/ /
/ / / / / /
/
/- / /--;
/ /
1/ / /- / -;;
/ -;;
/ -;;
/ /
/ /_/
/
r / /
/
r
/ /
V

l)

l)

Walker and Company

Collectors' Blue Books

THIS

SERIES IS DIRECTED

to enthusiasts in

many areas. The books have been designed

in attractive and compact formats, and they
are profusely illustrated. Each practical and
informative vo lume has been ''''fitten by a
recognized authority, and \vill prove inval

uable to amateUl's, connoisseurs and schol

ars. The scope of the series is exemplified by

the titles listed belm\' :

Buttons
by Diana Epstein

Chess Sets
by F. Lanier Graham

Dolls

by John Noble

French Clocks
by Winthrop Edey

Tiffany Glass
by :tvIario Amaya

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