Man Ray Chess Set

Every now and then The Wall Street Journal features a chess set.  Maybe I've featured this particular "set" before, or maybe not.  It's beautiful, either way.

TECHNOLOGY

September 14, 2012, 5:52 p.m. ET

The Board Game Upgrade Your Chess Set

Man Ray designed this chess set in 1920 using found objects from his studio. Most of the pieces are geometric models made for still-life drawing (the king is a pyramid, the queen a cone, the rook a cube, the pawn a sphere). The knight—the finial of a violin—was fashioned from a box of abandoned violin necks.

Only a handful were ever produced (the maharajah of Indore commissioned a set made from silver-plated brass). This re-edition is rendered in wood, as Man Ray originally intended, and is based on a set housed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

To play with this set is to create a slow moving, sculptural tableau. You'll want to take your time pondering your next move. $210, ameico.com

A Beautiful Chess Chess at the Met

Chess set, late 18th century

Russian (Kholmogory)
Walrus ivory
Pfeiffer Fund, 1960 (60.146a-pp)

Source: Chess set [Russian (Kholmogory)] (60.146)
Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History
The Metropolitan Museum of Art 

Three of the pieces are modern replacements.


Chess was avidly played in Russia by czars, princes, and merchants. The design of this chess set reflects the Indian influence in the introduction of the game to Russia, probably during the eighth or ninth century. Initially, the moves were a bit different from the European version of the game.

Although the two sides of this set—Russian Christians versus Muslims—are not differentiated by color, it is easy to distinguish them and the type was a standard Russian design. As in Indian sets, there are ships for rooks and elephants for bishops. The king is seated on a throne. Also as in Indian sets, next to the king is his vizier, here represented as a Roman officer. The pawns are Roman and Muslim soldiers. The elephants of the Christian side have mahouts but there are none on the Muslim side. The pierced, ajouré bases of these pieces are attached with ivory pins. They are carved with Neoclassical acanthus-leaf tips, which helps to date this set.

The town of Kholmogory, roughly fifty miles up the river from Archangel, was famous for its carvers, who used bone and walrus tusk for their productions. The sea mammal was landed in Archangel and every part of the walrus—the meat, skin, feet, and ivory tusks—was valued, for food and other products.

Source: Chess set [Russian (Kholmogory)] (60.146)
Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History
The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Something is Brewing...

Darlings, I'm sorry I have not been paying as much attention to this blog as I usually do. I've been very busy (1) watching what is going on in Iran after the recent Presidential election and (2) plotting something chessly with the lovely Shira Evans -- up to my ears! I promise, all will be revealed soon at Chessville. In the meantime, please bear with me. Or is that - please bare with me? No - it has to be please BEAR with me. Grrrrrrrwwwwwllllll... Chess set image: from The Chess Piece. I can't tell which pieces are the King, Knight and Rook. The small bears are the pawns, and the sole femme on the board must obviously be the Queen, and lovely she is. So, who is the King?

An Interesting Chess Set

From time to time at Goddesschess we report on auctions of chess items we find of interest. Today I came across this item. I have to say I would love to have such a set for myself :) That it is worth so little? Heck - even I could afford to buy a lovely setting like this for my humble abode. But - no - I'd rather save the money for a trip to London in 2010...

Interesting Chess Set

Giant chess set situated in the Pere Marquette Lodge in the Pere Marquette State Park in Grafton, Illinois.

Chess Adventures: Shopping for a Chess Set

A rather interesting short piece from the northwestern.com out of Oshkosh, WI (yah, my home state!) Posted April 5, 2008 Streetwise: Sometimes you need to shop outside the box Streetwise has a story for you this week. Not sure if there’s a moral to it, but maybe we will just use it as an indicator of how screwy commerce can be in this town. Or, maybe just how screwy Streetwise can be. The object of our pursuit: A small chess set, which we were willing to reasonably pay for. Beginning after work on Monday, Streetwise spent a total of two hours and waaaay too much gas driving around to every store we thought could possibly have a small chess set so we could set it on our desk and play our Minneapolis friend Gerg (EDS – NOT a misprint. He goes by Gerg instead of Greg) in a move-a-day match. We started downtown with a call to House of Heroes and a look through the Paper Tiger. No such luck in either case. Big boxes were next and yielded some results. Target had a few cheap-but-not-small ones, Hobby Lobby was a bust and surprisingly, so was Shopko. Admittedly, Streetwise did not try Wal-Mart. Next, came an epiphany. Hobbytown USA on Oregon Street. A solution and a way to shop local! Check and mate, to use the preferred nomenclature. Not so much. Yes, they had chess sets, but none cheaper than $60 and no small ones. At this point, friends, we hadn’t expected such a battle for something so simple as a chess set, but our resolve had also hardened as we again drove back out to the frontage roads. Streetwise was going to find a chess set if it took looking in every dang store out there. Alas, we returned to Target after stopping at, of all places, OfficeMax in the hope they might have an “executive” chess set. Bought the $4 chess set with a laminated paper board and prepared for the start Tuesday. Got into work, proudly set it up – also weighted it down to get the board to lay flat – and went to work snapping shots of all the changes happening downtown for “Public Enemies.” The assignment took us into Satori Imports where, as we turned to walk out, there sat a small, glass chess set and glass board for $8 in a glass case. Of course, Streetwise thought, this could only happen in Oshkosh.