v 3.8.web 2025
When you or I think about chess, what pieces do we picture? What pieces do people in other countries picture? What did people in the past picture? This is a timeline of chess set designs through history.
Jump to:
2,500 BCE
The earliest ancestors of chess may have been played by the Indus Valley civilisation more than four thousand years ago. Clay figurines discovered in Lothal may be the earliest "chessmen".
The Lothal "chessmen."
7th C. CE
By the 7th Century CE, people in India were playing chaturanga ("four divisions"). The name refers to four types of soldier that made up the game—infantry, cavalry, elephants, and chariots, commanded by a raja—that were modeled on the armies of the time. It was the innovation of these different piece types, which each moved in different ways, that distinguished chaturanga from other war games. The different piece types are the ancestors of the pieces of the modern game, and one of the reasons why we can trace chess back to chaturanga.
Chaturagna spread outwards from India and is thought to be the common ancestor of many similar games. When it reaches Persia in the 8th Century, the game becomes shatranj, which would later reach Europe and develop into modern chess.
A map showing the spread of chaturanga and its influence on other games around the globe, including shatranj, chess, xiàngqí (China) and shogi (Japan).
If you were transported to ancient India, you would not necessarily recognise the game they were playing as chess. One of the earliest descriptions we have of how chaturanga was played comes from the 11th Century Persian scholar Al-Biruni's text, India. Like modern chess, chaturanga was played on an eight by eight grid, which had been borrowed from an existing Indian game called ashtapada. In the chaturanga Al-Biruni describes, however, this board was the battleground for four players and four different armies at once. It was also a game of chance (!), where players rolled dice to decide which pieces to move.
Both modern chess players and 11th Century Persian shatranj players would find the moves of this game to be different. Al-Biruni describes the elephant (the ancient bishop) as able to move only one square diagonally at a time, or one square forward instead. ("They say that these five squares (i.e., the one straight forward and the others at the corners) are the places occupied by the trunk and the four feet of the elephant.")
If shatranj to the West and xiàngqí to the East, both games for two players, descend from the same game, it would make sense to assume that the common ancestor was also a two player board game. Chess historian H J R Murray, who wrote the definitive treatise of the origins of chess, thought, from the way Persian and Arabics writers described chaturanga in reference to shatranj, that there must have been two-player versions of the game in India at the same time as Al-Biruni witnessed the four-player game. Murray cannot say which, two- or four-player chaturanga, he believes came first. However, it is certain that there were two-player Indian chess games in later centuries. These, which have dispensed with dice, were called by some variation of buddhidyūta, "intellectual game".
8th C.
In the Second Persian Empire, chaturanga becomes shatranj. As shatranj, new rules are introduced that cause the game to begin to resemble modern chess, including the rule that the King cannot be captured but must be rendered helpless: shah mat, the King is helpless, gives us the word checkmate.
The earliest shatranj pieces were figural (depicting recognisable forms from life), like those discovered in Afrasiab, modern Uzbekistan, made from ivory and dating from the 700s. They feature soldiers on foot, horseback or riding chariots or elephants.
The Afrasiab chessmen are normally considered the oldest definitive chessmen. While there followed a shift in favour of abstract pieces, they must not have been completely replaced, as later examples of Islamic figurative pieces have been found.
Seven figurative chessmen were excavated in Afrasiab, northern Samarkland.
Early figural chessmen, Left: a bishop (elephant), date given as 7th (!?) to 8th C. Right: rook (chariot) 11th to 12th C.
8th C.
The shift to abstract chessmen has traditionally been attributed to religious an-iconism: the prohibition of figurative objects to prevent idolatry. However, not only have later figural pieces been found, but per the Met, abstract Persian chessmen are now thought to predate the Islamic conquest. Perhaps the adoption of symbolic chessmen were to make them easier to distinguish in games, or cheaper to manufacture?
Shah and firzan (King and Queen) are represented by a large and small throne. The fil (elephant, i.e. bishop) is represented with two tusks, the faras (knight) with one and the rukh (chariot, i.e. rook) with a cleft.
Although they have a simple silhouette, many of these pieces have been found adorned with intricate designs.
Abstract chessmen. Left: One side of the Met's striking, complete 12th Century Persian stonepaste pieces. Right: 8th-10th Century shah, made from jet and carved with dot-and circle patterns that were inlaid with red and white pigment.
10th C.
Shatranj entered Europe through Sicily (conquered and ruled by Arab caliphates from the late 9th to 11th Centuries) and through Moorish Spain (conquered in the 8th Century). The earliest surviving European description of chess is the Versus de scachis, a 10th C. poem found in the Einsiedeln Abbey in Switzerland, which praises the game and describes the board and how the pieces may move. At this point, the game is still very close to shatranj. The rooks are the only long-ranged pieces. The queen may only move diagonally and only one square at a time. The bishop moves diagonally two at time, not stopping at the first square it moves to.
Many of the earliest chessmen in Europe, which follow the same abstract Persian pattern, were found in the Muslim territories of Andalusian Spain and Sicily. Many are thought to originate from the Middle East. Other examples may have been brought to Europe later, during the Crusades, or manufactured to the same design locally.
The Sandomierz chessmen, an early Persian-style chess set found in Europe. It is uncertain if this hoard was imported from the Middle East or manufactured in Europe. Regional Museum in Sandomierz.
The earliest chessmen discovered in Europe are in the Islamic mode, like the Sandomierz set, an almost complete 11th C. set discovered in Sandomierz, Poland. Mediaeval Persian-style pieces have been found across Europe, made of many different materials, including ivory, bone, and rock quartz.
11th C.
Later, Europeans began to carve their own figural pieces. One of the earliest extant examples are the Charlemagne chessmen. Although legendarily associated with Charlemagne, these chessmen are thought to date from about 200 years later. It was gifted to the French monarchy and ended up in the Treasury of Saint-Denis.
By now the vizier has become a Queen in Europe. She is referred to as regina (Latin: queen) in the 10th C. Einsiedeln poem, and is depicted as a queen in this set.
A simple explanation for her transformation is that her Queenliness was suggested by her proximity to the King. Davidson says the change was due to homophony between fierge (counselor) and vierge (maiden), writing "she owes her title to accident of sound." He has it that maiden became the Virgin Mary and the "queen of angels"—but he also believes it only happened in the 15th-16th Century while, as we can see, the piece was definitely depicted and referred to as a Queen long before then.
Carved from ivory in Salerno, Italy, in the 11th century, the Charlemagne chessmen feature Norman-Sicilian-style warriors and other figures. The King and Queen are depicted in elaborate pavilions.
It is hard to imagine that such elaborate figural sets were commonplace for play, with this one being so precious as to be kept with the French crown jewels.
12th C.
The largest hoard of mediaeval chessmen is the Lewis hoard, discovered in Uig, Scotland.
These pieces are known for their caricature-like figures with funny, expressive faces. Queens sit on their thrones looking bored, while warders (rooks) gnaw on their shields.
While the Charlemagne set features figural elephants, by the Lewis set the elephants have become bishops, as the two "tusks" of the elephant pieces were reinterpreted as a bishop's mitre in Europe. This explanation appears to satisfy everyone.
Although he is called a bishop in English, in other languages he is identified with a different character. In other parts of Western Europe, he is often called a messenger or runner (as in German, Danish, and Dutch) or a fool or jester (French and Romanian). In Russia and places more strongly influenced by the Russian, Arabic, or Indian chess traditions, he remains an elephant.
Meanwhile, chariots of the Charlemagne set become sword-and-shield wielding warriors in the Lewis set, but only later would be re-imagined as towers.
Still from Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone (2001), where animated Lewis Chessmen come alive and fight it out on the board.
1420-1450
An incomplete set from Northern Italy, donated with period chess board to the Ashmolean Museum by J. Francis Mallett. These have been produced on a lathe: this soon becomes the dominant approach to producing chess pieces over individual carving.
Williams identifies the Mallett set as the work of Florentine Baldassarre Embriachi, who "invented a way of preparing and carving bone so that it could be used like ivory." Williams names the pieces, above, left to right, as the King or Queen (sharing a shape, but the King being taller), the bishop (as a standard bearer, alfiere in Italian, presenting a flag or shield), the rook ("exotic, bird-shaped. Some countries believe the rook to be a mythical monster bird," i.e. a rukh or roc), then the pawn. Williams also compares this set to the illustrations accompanying a 16th C. chess manual.
In the 15th Century, the Queen acquired her long-range moveset and became the most powerful piece as part of a number of chess reforms in late 15th Century Spain. Feminist scholar Marilyn Yalom connects this with the cult around the Virgin Mary and Queen Isabella I of Castile. Yalom also suggests the 10th Century Holy Roman Empresses Adelaide of Burgundy and her daughter-in-law Theophanu as inspirations for the vizier's transmutation. These reforms also made the bishop a long ranged piece, gave pawns their two-step first move, and introduced castling.
Woodcuts from the 1520 edition of Schachzabel Spiel by Jakob Mennel suggest what recognisable chessmen would have appeared like in the 16th C. Note the similarity to the 15th C. Italian pieces, especially that of the rook (top right panel).
1485
In addition highly decorative figural chessmen, chess players of the Middle Ages would have played with simpler, abstract pieces.
Those above are based on the engravings of The Game and Playe of the Chesse, a 1485 a translation by William Caxton of a 13th Century allegorical work by Jacobus de Cessolis, and a reproduction of the same from The Historic Games Shop, Wales.
1560s
In the absence of artefacts, descriptions and depictions of chessmen in 16th Century art give us an idea of what sets would have looked like in Europe at this time.
In the family portrait of the 3rd Baron Windsor (1568), detail below, Windsor's children play with simple, abstract (that is, non-figural) chessmen.
In his 1562 translation of an originally Italian chess manual, James Rowbotham describes typical chessmen in England around this time: (edited for modern orthography)
"Our English chessmen are commonly made nothing like unto these foresaid fashions [they are not figural]: to wit, the king is made the highest or longest; the queen is longest next unto him; the bishop is made with a sharpe top, and cloven in the middle not much unlike to a bishop’s mitre; the knight has his top cut asloope [cf. Headless Horsemen, below], as though being dubbed [i.e. in a ceremony conferring knighthood] knight; the rook is made most like the king and the queen, but is not so long; the pawns made the smallest..."
That is, non-figural chessmen where the King, Queen, and rook are distinguished by height, the bishop has a cloven mitre, and knights are slope-cut. This discription lead Rochford to christen some 18th C. English pieces Rowbotham (below): compare these to the cartoon above based on the pieces in the Windsor portrait
Detail from the 3rd Baron Windsor's family portrait (1568), painter unknown.
Sofonisba Anguissola's 1555 painting The Game of Chess, detail below, depicts the artist's sisters playing chess with wooden, bust-like figural pieces.
Rowbotham's manual gives a description of what was apparently considered typical Italian chessmen as figural pieces, thus: (edited for modern orthography)
“"Some make them like men, where the king is the highest [i.e. tallest], and the queen (which some name Amazon or lady) is the next, both two crowned. The bishops some name alphins [i.e. standard bearers], some fools, and some name them princes... other some call them archers, and they are fashioned according to the will of the workman. The knights some call horsemen, and they are men on horse back. The rooks some call elephants, carrying towers upon their backs, and men within the towers. The pawns some call footmen, as they are soldiers on foot, carrying some of them pykes, other some arquebus [15th-17th C. gun], other some halberds, and other some the javelin and target..."
Detail from The Game of Chess (1555), Sofonisba Anguissola.
1561
Ruy López de Segura, for whom the Spanish opening is named, writes Libro de la invencion liberal y arte del juego del axedrez.
This pattern has its origins in the early 17th Century, where similar chessmen appear in the illustrations of Gustavus Selenus's 1616 chess manual. It would remain popular in Germany and Northern Europe until the 1850s.
Selenus pieces are slender and delicate chessmen with multiple tiers. Knights have become more clearly horse's heads, and the rook clearly a tower.
A popular explanation given for the reimagining of the rook as a tower is that rukh was equated with either Mediaeval Latin rocca or Italian rocco meaning tower, and indeed in modern Italian rocco means both rock and fortress. However, Treccani asserts rocco first arrived in Italian meaning the chessman, from the Persian rukh, and only later gained the meaning tower (synonymous with torre). Rocca appears in Du Cange's Mediaeval Latin dictionary with the meaning of fortress, but its etymology is unknown.
Alternatively, Hans Holländer has attributed the origins of the rook-as-tower to Vida's 16th Century poem Scacchia Ludus, where rooks are depicted as war elephants which carried towers on their backs.
Slight and delicate. These are normally attributed to the Netherlands, although it is uncertain exactly where and some sets at auction have been speculated to come from Germany or Denmark.
In this pattern, the Kings, Queens, and bishops appear as slender, 'multi-knopped' columns, distinguished mainly by height. They often have contrasting finials, which may be bone on an otherwise wooden set. The knights look solemn, and are dramatically arched. Rooks are stylised towers with spires.
17/18th C.
In a 2018 essay, Dermot Rochford christens this pattern of 17th/18th Century English chessmen Rowbotham, arguing that they retain or recapitulate features from James Rowbotham's 16th Century description.
Cf. the Windsor Family Portrait, above.
1740s on?
Uncommon pattern attributed to Kholmogory or the Archangel region of Russia in general. Kholmogory, better known for figural sets, was a centre of bone carving in 18th Century Russia.
Some chessmen of this silhouette have carved faces for finials (they may be called Little Faces sets).
These chessmen may be made from animal bone, mammoth tusk or walrus ivory. Williams notes that they were also turned from wood, but I have not seen an example. He draws our attention to the "tub shaped" rook: the rook is ладья in Russian, "boat", and is depicted as ship in Russian figural sets. In these sets it appears halfway between a boat and a tower.
Figural chessmen from the Russian bone and walrus tusk carving centre of Kholmogory. These often depicted armies of different nations, where they opposing sides were not necessarily stained different colours but distinguished by different troop design.
In the above pattern (Metropolitan Museum of Art), as is common in Russian figural sets, rooks are depicted as ships and bishops as elephants.
1769
Baron von Kempelen (1724–1804) builds the Mechanical Turk, a hoax robot chess player.
c. 1770
Known as Washington pattern after a famous set once owned by the chess enthusiast and first US president of the same name.
Typically: Kings have "cogged" crowns, Queens with ball finials, bishops with split mitres, knights arched and rooks as turrets.
c. 1770
The centre of chess in the 1700s, and Philidor's (1726–1795) regular haunt, was the Café de la Régence, Paris. It gives its name to the Régence or Regency pattern chessmen that were popular at the time.
Though they would fall out of favour for easier to distinguish pieces, they were still popular enough by the early 20th Century to be depicted in Antti Favén's 1913 painting of the Café.
Urn-shaped stands with dainty stems. Kings with flattened crowns. Queens and bishops with spherical finials (harder to tell them apart). Bishops collars with crimped edges to evoke the biretta, a clerical hat. Knights are figural horse heads: contemporaneous sets with turned knights instead of carved, resembling the bishops and Queens, are called Directoire sets.
Detail from The Chess Players (1913), Antti Favén.
c. 1780
Thought to originate near Lyon in France, such sets resemble Regency sets with the addition of bone or ivory trimmings—collars, finials, feet.
In a similar mixed-material pattern known as Inverted Lyon, the urn bases are upturned, more like bells, and the bone collars resemble more of a skirt.
1795
A descendant of the Selenus pattern from the previous century. Like that pattern, the number of tiers helps to distinguish the King and Queen. The King and Queen are adorned with petal-like whorls that give rise to slender towers like the gynoecium of a flower.
John Calvert (17??–1822), the London-based turner, is thought to have originated this pattern in 1795. Similar sets of this style followed from Calvert, Lund and others into the next century. Later iterations of this pattern grow more elaborately floral.
These are often called Spike or Spiked sets. Camaratta's name for these is more poetic: Petal and Pistil. His company "House of Staunton" produced a run of reproductions of the pattern in the 1990s.
The prevalence of lathe-turned pieces in the 18th century did not completely displace carved, figural chessmen.
Dieppe, the centre of ivory carving in France, was known for producing ivory bust-style chessmen depicting political themes. Opposing kings became busts of real people in conflict, like Henri IV and Napoleon, and sets depicted the meeting of different national armies from history.
The above example (from the next century, 1870 Metropolitan Museum of Art) represents King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain in the Granada War. Its bishops are carved as jesters, as the bishops are known in French (fous). Knights in Dieppe sets may be plain horses heads, as here, or may have riders, so called hobby-horse knights.
18/19th C.
Ornate chessmen turned from bone with wide barrels in the middle of the stems of the Kings and Queens. They are often carved with ornate foliage decorations. The name Barleycorn, i.e. the grain of barley, presumably after these foliate designs. A barleycorn is also a unit of measurement or, figuratively, something very small and so beneath notice: neither seems appropriate here. Jim Joannau believes Barleycorn is a recent coinage from the 1970s, with the sets being referred to in 19th C. period advertisements as simply "bone chessmen".
While all such sets are commonly called "Barleycorn", some collectors believe the name should only apply to those sets with foliate decoration, and distinguish sets with different decorations (e.g. van Reij calls a Barleycorn variant Ropetwist) or without additional adornment (aka Plain Barleycorn or Ribbed). In Joannau's research, he produced a timeline suggesting plainer sets came earlier than had been thought, with the more foliate Barleycorn designs following them (rather than the ribbed designs being cheaper knock offs of more expensive foliate Barleycorns).
Because only the outside tube of the bone (cortex) can be carved, these are made from multiple pieces screwed together. The diameter of the marrow that filled the bone limits the minimum diameter of the barrels.
Varied King's finials—flower, cog-shaped, or imperial crowns—possible. Rooks as full towers, with or without flag.
Detail from The Chess Game (1878), Julian Ashton.
Chess prodigy Paul Morphy (1837-1884) and Barleycorn chessmen.
Though historically referred to as Spanish Pulpit chessmen, the origin of the intricately decorated Pulpit chessmen has been a matter of debate—but they're probably not from Spain.
The Russian bone carving centre of Kholmogory has been suggested, although interestingly most of these sets appear in English collections. Garrick Coleman asserts that these were made by French prisoners of war, held in England during the Napoleonic Wars, who were known to make bone crafts to sell for income. He cites the material—they are invariably bone—and "charming naive form of carving" resulting from make-do prison tools as in common with other Napoleonic prisoner of war crafts. He compares them to a figural chess set also asserted to be from Napoleonic prisoners of war. The first such prisoner of war camp was Normans Cross, established 1796 outside of Peterborough, and Coleman directs us to a Pulpit set among the Peterborough Museum's Norman Cross collection.
Williams is not convinced. He writes,
Pulpit sets do have many features similar to the work of prisoners, but there are also many anomalies—too many to confidently describe the [pattern] as a Napoleon prisoner-of-war set. The mystery of where the Pulpit sets may have originated remains for the moment. These set do have a strong English connection, and perhaps an old colonial one.
Of the Peterborough Museum set, Williams is hesitant to agree that it is from the camp over its lack of provenance, having been added to the collection in 1953 when donated by a local family.
Pulpit chessmen may be entirely non-figural, but many partial-figural examples exist (below). There are modern Mexican bone sets known as Mexican Pulpit due to their similarity to these patterns.
Figural sets in the Pulpit style, where the kings, Queen, and bishops feature upper bodies or just heads emerging from Pulpit-style bases: galleries encircled by feathers or leaves.
A set of these is in The Met's collection, where it is attributed to Portugal, 1750-1800:
The idea of a gallery does not seem to have been popular elsewhere in Europe, where the tendency is to place busts on truncated columns of various shapes, or other pedestals... This form also went via the Portuguese to Macao, where the body is transformed into an ealborate balustrade topped by a head... There is a possibility that this set and some others like it are actually the work of Africans from Sierra Leone or Benin living in Lisbon.
If these sets are of the same ilk as non-figural "Pulpit" sets (and I suppose we don't know that for certain) than this would muddy the issue of their authorship further.
c. 1830
Known as St. George after the St. George Chess Club, London, or sometimes Calvert English. Originating from John Calvert's London workshop, similar patterns would be picked up by other workshops including Jaques of London and William Lund.
Heavy set pieces with wide bases, decorated with many 'knops' (the 'ribs' up the stems). The bishops have split open mitres.
The asymmetric knight's horse head could not easily be produced on a lathe alone.
Alternatively, knights could be turned on a lathe as with the other pieces, and the head cut off at an angle. These "slope-cut" knights were seen in cheaper sets.
c. 1830
Originating from Muslim-majority North India, though similar chessmen were made in other majority Muslim countries like Turkey too.
These may be of a wide variety of shapes: mushroomoid, spools, and so on. Common features are that they are completely nonfigural, without symbols, and pieces are distinguished by size.
Their similarity to ancient Persian shatranj pieces is undeniable. Despite their simple silhouettes, often they are painted with bright colours or patterns.
c. 1800-1850
Biedermeier chessmen, named for the Biedermeier period and design movement, were popular in Central Europe in the first half of the 19th Century.
The bishops finials deserve comment: often with opposite-coloured balls or batons evoking a 'feather in a cap'. In later sets they resemble hats more closely, transforming into a 'beret' (disk attached at a jaunty angle), or a little top hat or bowler.
Detail from Das Schachspiel (1937), Lajos Kolozsváry.
c. 1800-1850
Decorative, stocky chessmen, reminiscent of the St. George pattern with more elaborate heads. Typically referred to as Hastilow as they are attributed to Charles Hastilow, a turner from mid-19th Century London.
c. 1800-1850
When Killarney, Ireland became a popular tourist destination in the mid-19th Century, a cottage industry in woodwork for the tourist trade flourished.
"Killarney ware," as it is referred to at auction, comprises popular and decorative antiques of yew, oak, or arbutus. Game sets, including chessmen, were produced alongside furniture, boxes, and trinkets.
Killarney chessmen can be very varied: this is less a specific pattern as much as a designation of antiques by origin—i.e. chessmen that are also Killarney ware. However, many are slender, with pointed kings finials, rounded Queen's finials, flower-bud bishop mitres.
c. 1800-1850
Historically called Burmese as they were mis-attributed to Burma (modern Myanmar), these kind of highly detailed sets are now thought to have been made in Canton for the export market.
Adding to the confusion, sets used to play chess's cousin game sittuyin, a Myanma offshoot of chaturanga, are often listed as "Burmese" as well. Real Burmese sittuyin sets are very different: they are figural, featuring squatting generals, elephants, horses and chariots.
Detail from The Chess Board (1927), Herbert Ashwin Budd.
1840s
A precursor to the Staunton design, Upright or Northern Upright chessmen show the beginnings of the trend towards simplified, more practical chessmen to play with.
They are also called Edinburgh Upright after the Edinburgh Chess Club, where they originated, attributed to Lord John Hay.
They made their way to London where they were produced by Hallett of Holborn and Jaques.
1840s
Another Staunton antecedent. Some of these sets are attributed to Ireland, but they were also made by Jaques of London.
The Dublin pattern combines Upright-style iconic heads with baluster-type stems. Many examples look uncannily modern, with unadorned, simple shapes.
Detail from The Veterans (1886), Richard Creifelds.
1840s
The originator of this pattern is uncertain but it has been attributed attributed by Dr Langer to Hallett of Holborn on account of the knight design.
An uncommon offshoot of Northern Upright chessmen: shorter and sturdier.
1843
Howard Staunton (1810–1874) defeats Pierre Charles Fournier de Saint-Amant. 1. c4, his choice of opening against Saint-Amant, is known as the English Opening in his honour. As a result of this victory, he is considered to be an 'unofficial' world champion.
1849
The 'just so' story of the Staunton pattern is this: the variety of chessmen designs popular in different parts of Europe had become an obstacle to international chess competitions. The existing styles could be impractical and top-heavy, or players had difficulty distinguishing pieces of unfamiliar sets. Nathaniel Cooke designed a more practical set that so impressed Howard Staunton, chess master, that he put his name to them.
Cooke was supposedly inspired by London architecture and horses of Classical sculpture like the Elgin/Parthenon Marbles. Variants on the knight design are used to distinguish different antique and collectible Staunton sets. The Queen now has her coronet, rather than a ball finial of Upright, St. George, and other antecedent sets. For the Smithsonian, architect Jimmy Stamp writes:
"The work of architects like Christopher Wren, William Chambers, John Soane, and many others inspired the column-like, tripartite division of king, queen, and bishop. A row of Staunton pawns evokes Italianate balustrades enclosing of stairways and balconies."
The original Staunton chessmen were produced by Jaques of London from 1849. Later, other manufacturers produced their own Staunton-style sets. The leading expert on the Staunton pattern is Sir Alan Fersht FRS, better known for his work on protein engineering, who has published a couple of guides to Jaques and contemporaneous chess sets.
Today wood, plastic, and metal sets following the Staunton pattern are cheap and widely available. Staunton became the de facto standard chessmen by the mid-20th Century, and today FIDE officially requires the pattern for tournaments.
So practical and iconic were the Staunton chessmen that even before they reached total cultural hegemony, the iconic pattern would inform other chessmen designs internationally that responded to or took on features from the pattern.
Detail from The Chess Players (1876), Thomas Eakins.
1850
George Merrifield was an English turner from the first half of the 19th C., who had apprenticed under Calvert and was known for his exquisite St. George- and Lund-style sets.
Merrifield produced this pattern in an unsuccessful attempt to compete with the Staunton pattern. Per Crumiller, these were only produced for 6 months!
An advert for Merrifield's Philidor chessmen ran in an 1850 periodical.
1851
Adolf Anderssen (1818–1879) wins the first international chess tournament. It was convened in London in 1851 by Howard Staunton to coincide with the Great Exhibition. Like Staunton before him, Anderssen's victory in this tournament led to him being retroactively considered an 'unofficial' world chess champion.
1857
American Paul Morphy (1837–1884) wins the First American Chess Congress. In 1858 he travels to Europe, defeats masters including Anderssen, returns to the US and retires from chess in 1859.
c. 1870s
The formidable Austrian Coffeehouse or Old Vienna chessmen, are something of a fusion between the Biedermeier and Staunton patterns, although auction houses seem to use Coffeehouse as more of a catch all for any non-Staunton Central European patterns.
These became the typical chessmen for games in Vienna and Central Europe from the late 19th until the middle of the 20th Century, when Staunton gradually overtook them. The kings and Queens have gear-like crowns. Bishop mitres are usually opposite coloured.
Nimzowitsch (1886–1935), Alekhine (1892–1946), and Coffeehouse chessmen in the Carlsbad 1929 tournament.
1873
The Vienna 1873 chess tournament is held, alongside the 1873 Vienna World's Fair. Wilhelm Steinitz introduces the positional style of play, marking the end of the Romantic school of chess.
c. 1880s
The Česká Klubovka—Chess Club—chessmen were designed in Prague in the 1880s by Czech sculptor Bohuslav Schnirch. Writing in 2018, chess collector Nicholas Lanier contextualised Schnirch's chessmen as a salvo in a culture war asserting independent Czech national identity.
"But chess was also split along the cultural and language divide... In the course of the [eighteen] eighties Schnirch found it necessary to provide his club with a proper chess set in a different style—the prevalent coffeehouse chess men were a Vienna invention, therefore the oppressors' "chessic" imposition... a new chess set responding to the national spirit of Czech Chess players was needed."
The influence of the Staunton design is clear, but with a Czech twist. Opposite-coloured heads or finials, common in Central European sets, are typical for the bishops and often present on the Queen and King. The bishops tend not to have a split mitre, but have a grove or flick of colour suggestive of preaching band neckwear.
Langer calls these Bohemian chessmen.
Alekhine (1882—1946) studies his board and its Česká Klubovka pieces at the 1931 Olympiad in Prague.
1886
Wilhelm Steinitz (1836–1900) becomes the first becomes the first World Chess Champion (as conventionally recognised), having defeated his rivals Anderssen 8-6 in 1866 in London and Johannes Zukertort (1842–1888) in 1886 (in a series of games held in New York City, St Louis, and New Orleans known as the first 'official' World Chess Championship).
1890
Petite pieces with wide bases, these were the go-to chessmen in Denmark through to the 1960s.
The name Knubbel (i.e. Lump) seems to have been coined by a German chess collector website, under the impression the pieces were an exclusively German pattern. In fact, research by Langer & Seiersen confirms their Danish origin, emerging by the 1890s. In Denmark they have gone by a few monikers: Copenhagen chessmen, and later Danish-type and the (Danish Chess) Union model. Nevertheless, Knubbel seems to have stuck, in the Anglosphere at least.
1890s-1920s
Uncommon pieces with intricate signifiers on the King and Queen, thought to be from pre-Soviet (i.e. Tsarist) Russia.
It's hard to imagine this pattern, so ostentatious and rare, was commonly used to play with. However, I think I can see a common influence of some design features, like the finials, in other Tsarist/early Soviet sets.
There doesn't seem to be a commonly accepted name for this specific pattern: the Royal sobriquet comes from an online seller.
1894
Emanuel Lasker (1861–1941) defeats Steinitz and becomes the 2nd World Chess Champion.
1900s
A number of US chess patterns from the American Chess Company, which feature kings with pointed spear-tips for finials. They are associated with the 1904 Cambridge Springs event, such that any early 20th C. American Chess Company set is often given the name "Cambridge Springs".
The variants of this style have differences in the knights and queens. A set that appears in American Chess Company advertisements from the time has queens with pointed prongs on their coronets and angular knights with short muzzles and sawtooth-like manes. While such sets are often referred to as "Cambridge Springs" sets, a photo of the event provided by Steven Etzel shows a variant with more traditional Staunton-style knights, and queen coronets with flattened teeth more like crenellations. Three of these sets also appear in a 1922 photo of a simul at the United States Capitol building.
The 1904 Cambridge Springs event was an international chess competition held in Pennsylvania, featuring Emanuel Lasker (1868—1941). It gave its name to the Cambridge Springs line in the Queen's Gambit Declined.
Photo of American Chess Company, Cambridge Springs-style sets from 1922, with the more traditional knight.
1910
Or Austrian Upright, a pattern known from the Carl Schlechter vs Emanuel Lasker world championship match of 1910.
c. 1910s
Following a typical Russian design philosophy, these pieces have tall and thin stems but wide bases to make them more stable to play with.
Commonly referred to as Averbakh, after Yuri Averbakh (1922–2022) who was photographed with similar chessmen in the 1949 Moscow Championship. Chuck Grau makes a distinction between the true Averbakh pieces from the photo, whose dainty stems are wider at the top than the bottom, and what are commonly called Averbakh but whose stems are straight sided. The former, from the photo, he also calls Smyslov as they are known from a 1937 photo of Vasily Smyslov (1921—2010). He calls the latter Soviet Upright; Russian Upright is also used.
Noshir Patel, in conversation in the Chess Collectors Hangout podcast, relates his discovery of such a set with crosses for the King's finials, indicating that the pattern has origins in Tsarist (pre-1917) Russia.
Vladimir Makogonov (1904—1993) teaches chess to a group of Soviet navy cadets with a set of Soviet Upright pieces.
c. 1920s
A rare but interesting early Soviet pattern, known for its rooks designed after cannons.
Chuck Grau relates that his copy was sold to him as late 19th century, but he dates it to around 1935. Grau notes that Cannon Rook pieces appear in a photo from that time and on the cover of a 1995 book, Satranç Eğitim Metodu (Chess Training Method) by H. Sertaç Dalkiran. Grau draws a connection between the pieces and a particular Russian cultural love of cannons, citing the 1812 Overture and the 16th century mammoth Tsar Cannon in the Kremlin.
They are very "conic": wide conic bases on all pieces, and the kings, Queens, bishops, and pawns have conic stems and profiles.
A similar set passed through Alan Power of TheChessSchach's hands. Power christened it "Militibus ex Antiquis Ruthenorum", "for the soldiers from ancient Ruthenorum" (i.e. ancient Rus), which he gives as "Old Russian Warriors." Other than the rooks, which are normal turrets, the pieces are almost identical in design to Grau's set. Power thought his set was from the 1920s so perhaps they were the immediate ancestor of the cannon rook design.
Coincidentally, the cannon (炮) is a piece in xiàngqí, the Chinese cousin of chess.
1920s-30s
Chuck Grau observed the constructivist influence on these unusual, early Soviet pieces, and noted they also appear in the (itself constructivist) poster for Chess Fever, a 1925 Soviet film.
Constructivism is a Russian art movement, influenced by cubism. The constructivists thought...
Art was to be built... the artist became an engineer wielding tools, instead of a painter holding a brush... they thought that art should reflect the industrial world and that it should be used as a tool in the Communist revolution.
Compared to more recognisable, later designs, these look strikingly un-Soviet. Short and stout, with pedestals wider at the top than the bottom, these pieces express a very different design philosophy to that of the slender Mordovian, Grandmaster and similar patterns. They're the end of a de-Stauntonised design cul-de-sac that also features the conic cannon-rocks set and some Tsarist pieces.
by the 1920s
(certainly much older)
Chess pieces from the Bornu province of Nigeria.
The King and Queen (mai, king, and chiroma, heir apparent, in Kanuri) pieces have the same design but are distinguished by the addition of a piece of fabric to the King. The knight (fẹr, horse) is a very abstracted horse shape. The rook (kaigamma, marshall) has two points that the Met describe as "long ears", the bishop (bintu) comes to a single points.
The pieces are stylised and abstract, and retain the Islamic tradition. The Met compares the pawn (gollo, boy) to early Muslim sets and the rooks to 14th Century "conventional pieces from Scandinavia". The Met and British Museum sets were purchased in Bornu in the 1920s, where the chess tradition was known as tsatsarandi and more closely resembled the rules of shatranj than European rules chess. It seems likely to me then that this design may be much much older, but I have listed it on the basis of the dated artefacts.
1920
Dada and surrealist artist Emmanuel "Man Ray" Radnitzky's (1890–1976) original and minimalist take on chessmen.
He designed many original chess sets. The first was in 1920, in the Dada tradition of taking an object and presenting it in a different form. Ray created a chess set from the items found in his artist's studio: some geometric objects, the broken neck of a violin, a vase, and a sphere. With his artist's insight he transformed them into a modern work of twentieth-century art. A pyramid became a king, a cone a queen, a vase a bishop, a broken violin neck a knight, a cube a rook, and a sphere secured to a button for a base became a pawn.
Man Ray plays chess against Marcel Duchamp in Entr'acte, the 1924 silent film and Dada art piece—although not with this set.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art holds several pages of Man Ray's designs for chessmen.
1920s?-1950
An uncommon Soviet set. They askew the extra wide bases and long stems common in other Soviet designs. To me the kings and Queens resemble hourglasses: their heads and bases like two cones meeting at a narrow waist. Others have compared the bases to hand-bells. The bishops' mitres sit atop stretched out, cylindrical necks. The collars of the kings, Queens, and bishops deviate from the three ringed collars of the Staunton pattern and other Soviet descendants like the Baku in that each ring is now spread out. The rooks are simple, either flat-topped or with a wall with no embrasures. The knights are also plain, with erect ears and no manes.
Some sets have appeared among Ukraine-based sellers where they might be listed as German or Soviet. Chess set refurbisher Alan Power, who worked on a couple of these sets, places them in Russia (he calls the pattern "a fairly rare Stalin Era Soviet pattern that was first manufactured in the 1920s"). While smaller bases and small stems make them look less "Soviet" than later patterns, they do askew Christian symbolism and wear Soviet Red vs Black livery. I don't think anyone doubts these were made in the USSR.
Are these sets derivative of a German pattern (as I have it second hand that Langer believes of Tsarist/Soviet designs in general)? Power notes the bell-bottomed bases as "Germanic," however I have not seen any sets held up as German antecedents to this pattern.
To me they look like a more ornate (& perhaps therefore an antecedent) version of Baku pieces: you can see how the bell-shaped bases and undeveloped stems of Hourglass pieces could simplify into Baku cone-shaped bases with mass production, likewise the King and Queen heads into upturned cones. The rooks, sans crenellations, are also similar.
There is little in the way of provenance for this design, other than they seem to appear in Ukraine. In a listing from Mykhailo Kovalenko, a Ukraine-based seller of vintage chess sets, he shares accompanying quality-control paperwork referred to Drahičyn and Brest in modern-day Belarus, which I found exciting at first but this probably refers just to the board only, which Kovalenko states is not original to the set. Power references a 1950 photo of Vasily Smyslov (1921—2010) playing with the pattern, included below, but it is the only such photo I have found.
Power gives the sets he refurbishes whimsical names in dog-Latin. Of these, he called one "Domini Bellum" (something like "the war of the Lord", which he translates as "the Dogues of War" but might just be a play on the word "bell"), and the other "Et Sanguis Baronem" ("and the baron's blood", which he translates as "the Red Baron"). In the absence of a name in common use, I christen these Hourglass pieces.
Smyslov giving a simul ahead of the 1950 RSFSR Cup team chess tournament, where he was the arbiter, in Cheboksary.
1921
José Raúl Capablanca (1888–1942) defeats Lasker 9-5 in Havana, becomes the 3rd World Chess Champion.
1923
This iconic set in Bauhaus style was designed by Josef Hartwig (1880–1956).
This set is distinctly minimal, formed from simple geometric solids. The designs for the knights and bishops reflect how they move on the board.
1921
Alexander Alekhine (1892-1946) defeats Capablanca 3-6 in Buenos Aires and becomes the 4th World Chess Champion.
1925
The first unofficial chess Olympiad is held alongside the 1924 Paris Summer Olympics. FIDE, the International Chess Federation, is founded to organise future Olympiads, beginning with the 1927 London Olympiad.
1930
Originating from Ukraine's historic woodworking region of Poltava, there is little known about the origins this Soviet-era design, but Chuck Grau, who coins the name Poltava Bell-bottoms conjectures the "bell-bottoms" may have been inspired by the Poltava skyline and the domes and towers of its monasteries and churches.
One of Poltava's beautiful domed buildings is the Church of Sampson the Hospitable, built to commemorate the Battle of Poltava.
1930s-40s?
Grandmaster chessmen are a small family of patterns of Soviet chessmen which would remain popular in the Soviet Union through to at least the 1970s. Chuck Grau explains the name as essentially a functional descriptor, i.e. chess sets as used by Grandmasters (but not exclusively in that they were widely used at all levels of play).
Soviet sets typically did not have names, just as most Soviet consumer products did not have brand names. Instead, chess sets were described by functional categories. Grandmaster sets were used by grandmasters. Tournament sets were for use generally in tournaments. Yunost sets were for students and youth.
I took this to mean that гроссмейстер (Grossmeyster/Grandmaster) is the endonym for this pattern, but I am not certain if this is so. At least, Google image searching for the Russian «шахматные фигуры гроссмейстера» ("grandmaster chess pieces") does not come up with any similar sets. Instead, the term may originate from collector Arlindo Vieira, who wrote:
an introduction to what I call GRANDMASTER PIECES, meaning Soviet-style chess pieces that were characteristic of many clubs, competitions, and even casual chess enthusiasts who used them in parks or gardens across the former Soviet Union.
(translated from Portuguese). In his piece, Vieira divided Grandmaster into four patterns. The cartoon above shows Grandmaster 2, also known as the Bronstein. The stems are less convex in GM 3 and 4 sets—but a fuller explanation on the features that distingush these sets (and other designations, like Grandmaster Supreme) is best left Vieira and Grau.
They are a Sovietisation of Staunton chessmen; a simplification of the pieces intended for mass production.
Grandmaster 4 pieces are part of this exhibit of artefacts from the 1984 Karpov vs Kasparaov World Championship match, on display at Moscow's Chess Museum. Also pictured is Ding Liren, who was only visiting and is not himself part of the exhibit. Photo from the Chess Federation of Russia.
1930s
Lardy were a French chess set manufacturer known for the mass production and export of Staunton-pattern sets. They began production of these boxwood sets in the 1930s, and Lardy reached their greatest popularity in the 1950s-60s before closing down in 1992. Nicholas Lanier wrote an essay on the history of the Lardy company and their rivals in the French woodmaking region of Jura.
Most distinctive of Lardy sets is the Lardy knight, which has a recognisable profile with an erect head held parallel to the ground, bulging eyes and striations on the neck. Their characterful appearance—Lanier called them "Roman nosed"—probably contributes to enduring popularity of Lardy sets: what was once a mass-market pattern is now the subject of premium, luxury reproductions.
1934
The Deutsche Bundesform, German federal shape, was developed under the Nazis to replace foreign Staunton chessmen with Germany's own nationalist and regime-endorsed design. Holger Langer attributes the design to German chess master Ehrhardt Post.
They were made famous by their use in the Munich 1936 Olympiad and remained popular in Germany long after the war.
1930s?-1947
The King and Queen have flattened, round crowns and spindly stems, so resemble shiitake mushrooms. Their collars around the stem even resemble the ring around a mushroom's stem (protective material left behind when the mushroom's gills emerge). To me they look like flying saucers and Seattle's Space Needle. Slender stems emerge from the typical Soviet base, extra wide for stability. The bishops mitres are huge (such bishops have been called 'acorns') and without a groove.
Nicholas Lanier was unsure of the origin of these pieces, which he called Svelte, but suggested a German origin. However, Chuck Grau, who calls them Mushrooms, reckons they originate from Minsk, modern day Belarus, where many sets have surfaced. Holger Langer notes they were common in the Soviet Union, whatever their origins.
Children playing chess in a Moscow park, 1947, taken by Robert Capa (1913–1954), better known as a war photographer.
1935
Max Euwe (1901–1981) defeats Alekhine to become the 5th World Chess Champion. Alekhine regained his title from Euwe in 1937.
1940s
Reflecting wartime austerity during the 1940s, simple travel sets, where chessmen were represented by symbols printed onto card or wooden tokens, were sent to soldiers on the front or in Red Cross parcels to prisoner-of-war camps (such as this one from the World Chess Hall of Fame, St. Louis, Missouri). Turned over, they could do as draughts men.
A model of these, called St. George's Combination Chess and Draughtsmen, was produced in Bakelite in the 1940s in England.
1940s?-1950s
Valdai chessmen, or Valdai Nobles, are mid-Century Soviet chessmen. They have wide bases, and rounded funnel-shaped stems like the domes of a Russian Orthodox cathedral. The kings and Queens and cone shaped heads and opposite-colour finials. The bishop's mitre is spherical (no cut or groove, of course). The rooks are distinctive: a small turret without crenelations connected to a much wider base.
The knights are the most far removed from their Mordovian-Latvian cousins, being more slender and angular, with clear facets. Alan Power wrote about these sets in his blog and the knights in particular captured his imagination. He describes them as "‘elbow’ shaped [with] minimalist facial features [and] curiously shaped ‘badger-like’ muzzle[s]" and likened them to the Clangers (the pink, alien, fabric mice). To me they look similar to the 15th Century "Novgorod knight".
These are known to come from Valdai (or Valday), a region in Russia between Moscow and St. Petersburg, on account of stamps found on the inside of the accompanying boards/boxes. Power says that this refers to a gulag near Novgorod. Trying to understand the geography, I had a look at the gulag.online map but was unable to tell which gulag corresponded. In one of those strange co-incidences, just as I happened to be writing this, Chuck Grau shared his and Sergey Kovalenko's detective work, which determined the source of the confusion: the earlier versions of this pattern were produced in the Valdai Regional Industrial Manufactory (not a prison or Gulag), but from 1957, ITK-4 took over the Manufactory's woodworking equipment and production of the sets. ITK-4 was part of the post-Gulag prison system, although not a Gulag per se.
So for "Valdai", what of "Nobles"? Grau mentions that it is a rare example of a Soviet endonym while Power relates that he was told these were referred to as "boyar" chessmen (боярин, a sort of feudal lord Power translates as "noble"). However, I've not been able to substantiate this yet. I wasn't able to find any Russian-language hits online using боярин (boyarin) or related phrases (e.g. «Валдайские боярские шахматы»). Rather, from my searching online, Russian-language websites usually refer to these as simply «Валдайские шахматы», Valdai chess pieces, without any sobriquet.
However, I did find some recent Russian-language auction listings calling these «дворянские» (dvoryanskiye) in inverted commas, "noble" in the adjective sense (i.e. not the nobles/boyars from Valdai but chessmen that are very noble). I wonder if in a roundabout way this may have come from Power! Power's style is to give all his refurbished sets both English names (all his Valdai sets are such-and-such "Nobles", like "High-Collared Nobles") and dog-Latin formal names, like "Torquem Nobilis [sic]". Here "nobilis" could be read either as "a noble" or "noble" as an adjective, so perhaps Power's name led to «Дворянские» in a roundabout sort of way, via his Latin translation.
Another possibility is that a term related to boyar was the endonym in one of the non-Russian minority Soviet languages. Whoever we owe the name to, Valdai Nobles has caught on as the name for this set in English-language auctions, helped by modern reproductions of the design using the same name.
Russian luxury set manufacturer Kadun reproduce these under the name Retro 70s (Ретро 70-х). Their reproduction's stems are concave, like Soviet Grandmaster sets.
Vlasov V.P. (left) plays with Valdai chess pieces at a Chita tournament, after 1943.
1944
Designed by Dadaist painter and sculpture Max Ernst (1891–1976) for the 1944 Imagery of Chess exhibition, one notable feature of this pattern is that the Queen is taller than the King. Ernst gave a set to Marcel Duchamp.
Larry List of the Man Ray Trust writes that Ernst was inspired by Angkor Wat, Easter Island, and African art.
1945
Henri Chavet was another turner from the French Jura. He began making Regency-style chess sets in 1912, but is well known for his Staunton produced sets after World War II.
Most characteristic are the Chavet knights, machine cut with slopy, curvy sides. The design has had a lasting influence, clearly reflected in the knights of Well's World Championship chessmen.
1945?
Mid-century Spanish manufacturer Indajesa's (Industrias del Ajedrez) take on the Staunton. Two pieces stand out the most. The Queen, who would stand taller than the King were it not for the King's finial, wears an unusual coronet that looks like a rook's crenelations. The knight's angular design is wild, like a horse crossed with a dragon.
Similar sets with slightly less striking knights were made by fellow Spanish company Marigo. The Indajesa design has been bought and revived by Barcelona-based manufacturer Mora Play.
Alexander Alekhine (1892-1946), left, plays with Indajesa style pieces in Sabadell, Spain, 1945.
1946
Alexander Alekhine dies still holding the World Chess Champion title, breaking the chain of succession.
FIDE take over the awarding of the title, and the intereggnum ends when Mikhail Botvinnik wins the 1948 championship to become the sixth World Chess Champion, ushering in the era of Soviet chess dominance.
1946
The Lipnitsky chessmen are named for Isaac Lipnitsky (1923-1959). Lipnitsky was a chess prodigy from Kiev, also known as the author of Questions of Modern Chess Theory. A 2018 biography of Lipnitsky, Исаак Липницкий: Звезды и Тернии (Isaac Lipnitsky: Stars and Thorns) by Nikolai Fuzik and Alexey Radchenko includes photos of this set in a 1946 Berlin chess tournament, organised by Lipnitsky.
It is an uncommon set (Holger Langer thinks his is one of only around four surviving originals) but the pattern has been revived in reproductions.
The most individual feature of the set is the wide, bell-like stems of the pawns. The knights are on pedestals. The King and Queen have typical Soviet-style heads and opposite finials.
Lipnitsky (with white) and his pieces play against "Nikolayev" in 1946. (Photo via Langer).
1947
Russian-American sculptor Peter Ganine (1900—1974) designed several chess sets, including the Gothic (aka Gothica and Superba), where the pieces are caricature faces in mediaeval garb; the Conqueror, featuring full-length figural models in mediaeval garb; and the Classic, where the pieces have more conventional Staunton silhouettes. Ganine sets were mass produced in America in Bakelite plastic, based on ceramic originals.
Ganine's Gothic pattern inspired similar sets like Drueke's King Arthur pieces. In the 1960s, Duncan Ceramic sold similar chessmen and molds, so that you could make and/or decorate your own clay chessmen. The World Chess Hall of Fame featured a homemade Duncan on their website in January 2022 and provided a bit more detail.
Ganine is also known for patenting the rubber duck in the 40s. Ganine was born in Tbilisi, modern day Georgia, and lived in Los Angeles for most of his life.
1950
FIDE formalises the chess titles, and invests the inaugural 27 FIDE Grandmasters.
1950 (but see text)
The placing and description of this pattern has caused me some difficulty, not least because of the paucity of examples. It has been asserted that these have a Turkish origin and some sets have been sold as 19th Century. At least some of these sets were made in Britain in the 1950s. Whether they really were based on earlier examples from Türkiye or elsewhere is speculative.
Crumiller gives his set of this design—though featuring horses as knights and turrets as rooks—the appellation Turkish Water Sprinklers and a date of c. 1900 in the book Masterworks. He justifies this thus:
Very few of these original antique sets are still around. The origins of this pattern are difficult to discern, but the king and queen pieces (especially those from several similiar extant sets) bear a strong resemblance to mid-to-late 19th-century water sprinklers that were made in Turkey, hence these sets are considered to be of Turkish origin and from approximately the same time period.
Crumiller notes that his set is unusual in having horses for knights and turrets for rooks, saying that others of the type have "floral-capped knights, and floral cups for rooks."
There are exactly two sets of this design that I have found auctioned as 1900 or earlier.
I am certain Crumiller's set (with horses and turrets) came from the Dr Jean-Claude Cholet Collection auction in 2007, where Christie's dated it as 1900 and described it as "turned and carved... in the Turkish manner" (without further explanation).
Another example, from the Bronstein collection, was auctioned in 2023 where it was also attributed to the Ottoman Empire and dated 19th Century. This one had floral knights and rooks. Like the Cholet/Crumiller set, it is white and stained-green ivory. These two sets, the Bronstein set and the Cholet/Crumiller set, are the only instances of this pattern that I have found auctioned as 1900 or earlier.
I don't find the "water sprinkler" explanation to be a compelling argument that these must have a Turkish origin (or a 1900 date) for all sorts of reasons.
Firstly, if we accept that the King and Queen were based on Turkish rose water sprinklers, that does not necessarily mean that this design originated in Türkiye as opposed to anywhere else where they had seen such sprinklers. Rose water sprinklers are not made on a lathe anyway, so there's no reason to suppose it would need to be the same workmen with the same skills producing both.
Secondly, rose water sprinklers are not uniquely Turkish. Many fine examples come from 18th (e.g.) and 19th (e.g.) Century India. So, if we accept that the King and Queen were based on rose water sprinklers, we would do as well to say that this supports an 18th or 19th Century Indian origin.
But do we accept that the King and Queen were based on rose water sprinklers? Just because the King and Queen evoke rose water sprinklers does not actually mean their designers were inspired by such sprinklers. A bulb-shaped chess piece is not so unusual or distinctive a design. Their silhouette is the same in essentials as the King and Queen of Archangel sets produced in 18th Century Kholmogory (above). Many Anglo-Indian sets feature similar bulb shapes (the pawns of the so-called Pepys set, and others), as well as floral accents.
Put another way, I may look at cinder toffee and say "this reminds me of honeycomb," and that's perfectly valid, but it does not mean cinder toffee is made by bees.
Before we look at the origin of the Turkish water sprinkler claim (which will suggest to you a particular reading of this whole issue), let's first consider where else in the 19th Century such chess sets could have been made.
The non-figural nature of the pattern may suggest an Islamic design (which would including Ottoman of course). Aniconism associated with Islamic art avoids the depiction of people and animals, but floral designs avoid this prohibition. However, this becomes hard to reconcile with the Cholet/Crumiller set with its knights as horses.
An Indian origin should be considered. They are not so far removed from Anglo-Indian export sets. Such sets, produced in several major ivory manufacturing centres in India, were made for the export market and so derived features from English designs, like horses for knights. Anglo-Indian export sets are quite varied and usually feature Kings and Queens with English-style crowns and coronets, but in other ways are quite similiar to the "Turkish" pieces. Among the various Anglo-Indian designs we see bulb shapes in stems, turrets on stems like the Cholet/Crumiller set, knights with figural heads, and floral motifs. They are also often white and green, traditional Indian chess colours, like the Cholet/Crumiller and Bronstein examples.
An English origin should also be considered. In the 19th Century there were many English imitations of the popular Anglo-Indian imports, which themselves may have been inspired by foliate English designs like Calvert's Pistil.
So, where does the Turkish claim originate from? It appears to come from Mackett-Beeson's book Chessmen, first published 1968. However (and here the plot thickens) it transpires that the set in this book was not from 19th Century Türkiye but from 20th Century Britain.
In 2006 a set by Bertram Jones, dated 1950 was sold at Christie's. It matched Crumiller's description of the "usual form" of this pattern exactly. Bertram Jones (1885-1969) was a British ivory turner and chess set manufacturer. The lot essay compares the set to the one in Mackett-Beeson's book, which was "described as Turkish and early 19th century... but now believed to be by Bertram Jones."
Now, it's very tempting to draw a line here and say "mystery solved, these sets were made by Jones in the 50s and have nothing to do with 19th century Türkiye, sorry Jon."
To his credit, Crumiller's discusses Jones in connection with his set. He writes,
several similiarly patterned sets were made by... Bertram Jones [whose speciality] was recreating different types of rare antique chess sets, using his skills, and techniques to make the sets look older than they were. Some of his sets were subsequently sold as original antiques, which was problematic at the time.
The implication being that Jones based his sets on a genuine antique, i.e. Crumiller's. This may be true but it seems hard to prove. I note that Christie's description of Jones's set doesn't claim Jones was inspired by an antique set. Rather, it repeats the rose water sprinkler legend, but now suggests it was Jones, working in the 50s, who was inspired by the sprinklers.
So it appears that the Turkish claim originated from Mackett-Beeson's book, where a Jones set was misidentified as an antique. It was then repeated in the 2007 and 2023 auctions, and Crumiller repeated it in good faith in his book. There is nothing really to support it other than the idea of chess pieces being based on water sprinklers being a quaint.
The Jones sets also calls into question the 19th Century/1900 dates, though it's possible that the auctioneers of the Cholet and Bronstein auctions had evidence other than the discredited passage in Mackett-Beeson's book to base their 19th Century date on. (I don't know if auctioneers have any tricks for dating ivory in the absense of documentary evidence anyway.)
As the only thing we known with certainty is that Jones made such pieces in the mid-20th Century, I have put them here on the timeline. Jones may have originated the design. He may, like Crumiller sugests, have based it on earlier pieces, but it is hard to be sure. If he was basing his set on older pieces, then we don't know where those pieces were from. They could as easily have been Anglo-Indian export sets as anything else.
The design of Jones's set has been seized upon by Royal Chess Mail for their Turkish Tower reproduction, though not made out of ivory and far less delicate in appearance. They also call it a "Pre-Staunton" set, which even going by Crumiller's set's 1900 date it would not be.
c. 1950
Collector of Soviet chessmen Arlindo Vieira coined the name Latvian to refer to these pieces. Chuck Grau identified that they more likely originated in the '40s-'50s in Mordovian gulags. These are also called Zvedza (i.e. звезда, "star") by sellers in former Soviet states. I suppose this comes from a star-shaped stamp on the inside of the accompanying boards: the Gulag 'logo'.
The knight design became more refined over time before eventually degenerating into cruder "slab" knights like two dimensional cut outs. Alan Power cross-referenced knight designs with the production date stamps on accompanying boards to produce a timeline.
Russian seller Vladimir Volkhov distinguished three varieties from three origins of Mordovian-Latvian sets, based on subtle differences in the knights and the heads of the Queens and bishops. They are Mordovian, from Yavas, Mordovia; Ob'edovskie, from Obedovo, Ivanovo Oblast; and Semyonov, Nizhny Novgorod Oblast.
These chessmen are slender and unweighted, but made stable with wide bases. The design received a resurgence in popularity after being featured in the final episode of The Queen's Gambit.
1950
Chessmen of this style seem to descend from the Staunton-ised pieces used in the first Candidates tournament, held in 1950 in Budapest, although with some deviation: in most sets bishops' mitres (opposite-coloured, of course, in the Central European fashion) lack the cut seen in the sets used in the tournament.
Isaac Boleslavsky (1919–1977) at the inaugural 1950 Candidates in Budapest with Hungarian Staunton pattern pieces.
Romanian-pattern Staunton chessmen are very utilitarian, with no collars on pawns and the rooks lacking crenellations. Typical with Communist-era sets there is no religious imagery, and typical of Central European sets the bishops often have opposite-coloured heads. This sometimes includes the bishop's collar.
1950
This utilitarian design, by Petar Poček (1878–1963), was commissioned for the 1950 Chess Olympiad held in Dubrovnik, Yugoslavia (modern day Croatia).
Dubrovnik pieces are unweighted: instead, they are especially stout with wide bases to keep them steady. Famously, they were Bobby Fischer's favourite design. Only a small number of sets were originally made, but they became highly sought-after. Updated versions, Dubrovnik II and Dubrovnik Minčeta, were designed and produced in the 1960s.
The knights have distinctive tucked-in heads. In common with other Communist-era sets, religious symbols like the cross on the King's crown or and groove in the bishop's mitre are missing. Bishops have opposite-coloured finials. Rooks have five merlons (parapets), to evoke the five-pointed star.
Bobby Fischer (1943–2008) poses with Dubrovnik chessmen on the cover of Life magazine.
1951
Russian pieces known as Baku for their appearance in photos of the 29th USSR Chess Championship, 1961, which were held in Baku, modern day Azerbaijan.
Grau relates that Russian collector Sergey Kovalenko has followed the paperwork back to 1953 for these pieces. I think they must date from earlier, however, as they appear in a photo of Isaac Boleslavsky and Semyon Furman (1920–1978) helping David Bronstein (1924–2006) to prepare, apparently for his World Championship match with Mikhail Botvinnik (1911–1995), dated 1951.
Boleslavsky, Furman, and Bronstein (L-R) and Baku chessmen in 1951.
Mikhail Tal v. Bukhuti Gurgenidze during the eleventh round of the 1961 USSR Chess Championship.
by 1952
This Finnish pattern chessmen was featured in the 10th Chess Olympiad held in Helsinki in 1952.
The pattern was popular in Finland and still being made until at least the 70s. It was revived in the 1990s by Kalle Tanni and family. Tanni called it the Tyrvää pattern, after the Tyrvää region of Finland, where the original examples were made.
Concave stems. Kings and Queens of the same height, barring the finials, which are exaggerated on the kings. The kings finials are normally white for both sides. All the edges are very smooth and rounded (Lanier called a similar Finnish set "Finnish smoothies"). They are very "Scandinavian," and remind me of the furniture of Finnish architect and designer Alvar Aalto.
Bronstein with Finnish pieces at the 10th Chess Olympiad, held in Helsinki in 1952.
1957
Botvinnik loses his title to Vasily Smyslov (1921–2010), but regains it in a rematch in 1958.
c. 1958
The Universum or Space Age chessmen were produced by Italy's ANRI woodcarving company to a design by Arthur Elliot, a former Disney animator who had worked on Bambi.
1960s
Modernist German set. Sets like this were sold by, and may have been manufactured by, G Henke & Co.
1961
Peter Ganine's other most enduring chess set pattern, along with the Gothic chess set of mediaeval faces (above), is his Classic pattern which revisits the traditional Staunton profile.
The Ganine Classic pattern is famous as the set with which Spock and Kirk play "tri-dimensional chess" in Star Trek. As a result, in addition to the original Ganine pieces, the pattern was been revived in Star Trek merchandise and later again in the form of many online-distributed models for 3D printing.
The knight has a tucked in chin, probably so that it is easier to cast in a mold, that resembles Dubrovnik knights. The other pieces feature a design motif with regularly spaced grooves cut out of the profile, so that the King, Queen, bishop, rook and pawn resemble honey spoons. It's like the pieces are only half there: it makes me think of interlaced video broadcasts and imagine that the pieces, too, are in the middle of being "beamed" away on radio waves.
Still of Mr Spock playing with Ganine Classic Pieces in Star Trek, "Court Martial".
1962
Designed for the 15th Chess Olympiad, held in 1962 in Varna, Bulgaria.
They are chunky and crude. The dimensions are a bit irregular between the pieces. The bishops look especially unusual: their collar is very low down the stem and there is no slice in their mitre. The original Varna pieces were made from Bakelite plastic, not wood, and sometimes have bothersome seams left over from the injection moulding process (this is called 'flashing').
1962
Extruded and anodised aluminium pieces designed by Austin Cox (1924-2015) for Alcoa Aluminum Co.
The simplified, elongate pieces resemble cutlery. Alcoa commissioned the sets, which came with a wall-mounting walnut display case, as gifts for their most valued customers, presumably more as an art piece than with the thought that they would be used.
Striking figurative, bust-style chessmen carved by Makonde woodworkers of Tanzania and Mozambique.
In the above set, the human figures, except the bishops, have facial markings representative of Makonde scarification. Kings have fez-shaped crowns, à la colonial-era soldier uniforms. Queens with water pots. Knights are represented by giraffes instead of horses, and the rooks by Makonde buildings instead of castles.
Mid-century Spanish pattern that combines Staunton and Regency-style signifiers with more sturdy bases.
This pattern is sometimes referred to as just Spanish, although both Spanish and Spanish Regency may be ambiguous, as pieces with more traditional 18th C. Regency profile—with urn-shaped bases—were also being produced in Spain at this time.
Kings with flattened crowns, Queens with bell-shaped or conic heads (a princess's hennin perhaps?) a la Regency. Bishops with cut mitres a la Staunton. Knights with stub-noses, apparently characteristic of Spanish Staunton sets also.
A popular decorative design, with distinctive kings and Queens and stylised crowns with opposite-coloured finials.
They often have geometric patterns burnt on in pokerwork, or painted on.
They seem to originate from Węgiel, a Polish games manufacturer, which calls them variously the Royal and King's design, although many similar clones from other companies are now available.
Viktor Korchnoi (1931–2016) playing with Polish Kings pieces.
1966
These minimalist, abstract pieces from artist F. Lanier Graham are delightfully efficient and could be cut from a single piece of wood.
The Lanier chessmen interlock and can be arranged into a rectangle. A whole set could be cut from two pieces of wood, one for each colour.
1970s
Langer calls these "political coffeehouse": Romanian sets that trended away from religious symbols (like King's crosses) as Ceaușescu's regime became stricter in the 1970s. The King and Queen now have cloche-like heads.
1972
Fischer defeats Spassky at the 1972 World Chess Championship.
A politically-charged, Cold War era game. Fischer's victory ended Soviet hegemony of chess, and it's no surprise that the Soviet Union would collapse a mere 19 years later.
1972
A set designed by Cyril Endfield—as in, the director of Zulu(!)—to commemorate the Fischer-Spassky 1972 World Championship match. The pieces, metal in two colours, are made from interlocking hollow tubes, or, in the poetry of the original patent, they are
tubular major pieces with indented rims to interengage in axial series and pack as a composite sheath on a mandrel with an intermediate sleeve made up from segmented tubular minor pieces.
The patent also refers to two antecedents of this design both from 1967: one by Charles Perry for the Metropolitan Museum of Art (the MOMA lists it as 1966), where the pieces were made from round tubes for one side and rectangular tubes for the other; and a set made of stacking conical pieces by Robert Cole Caples, the landscape artist.
There were six original sets, then a numbered run of 650 sets, made from silver and signed by Spassky. They came with a silver-plated and leather board. This design was reissued by IC Design Ag in 2022 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Championship.
An Endfield antecedent from Charles Perry, showing the interlocking design.
1973
A Brazilian Staunton design with knights that resemble jaguars more than horses. These are known from the 1973 and 1979 interzonals in Petrópolis and Rio de Janeiro respectively, although I understand earlier sets with Jaguar knights are known from the 1960s, particularly in photos of Henrique Mecking.
Former world champion Tigran Petrosian (1929–1984) (left, with white) faces off against Lajos Portisch (1937–) at the 1979 interzonal in Rio de Janeiro. (Photo via H. Langer, photographer unknown.)
1980
Chessmen to commemorate the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow. Mixed material pieces, made of plastic with metal accents, with uniform wide bases and slender narrow necks.
Ukrainian chess collector Mykhailo Kovalenko related to Chuck Grau that these were manufactured in Belarus (gold accents only) and Ukraine (gold or silver accents). A Ukrainian variant has doubled bases on the King and Queen.
A ERLeatherWoodShop, based in Kharkiv, Ukraine, have made a modern wooden reproduction of this set, which is stunning and clear evidence that these should have been made in wood to start with!
Olympic chessmen gracing the cover of Тактика и стратегия шахмат (Chess Tactics and Strategy, 1985) by Alexander Sergeyevich Volchek.
1980s?
Popular among a number of Italian manufacturers, including Italfama and Dal Rossi, are these metal or mixed-material designs, where metal bases and finials are connected by wooden or plastic shanks. The ones with metal bases and heads and vase-like stems remind me of the silver and jade Fabergé chess set.
Italfama use this format—wooden stems with metal heads—for several different product lines distinguished by different styles of heads, which their distributors refer to as a "traditional Italian style". Alongside mixed-material sets, they make all-metal pieces with the same profiles. An Italfama all-metal set was used in the final scene of X-Men: The Last Stand (2006).
Metal Italian pieces revealed villain Magneto had not completely lost his magnetism powers in the final moments of X-Men: The Last Stand (2006).
1987
Seville in 1987 saw Garry Kasparov (1963–) and Anatoly Karpov (1951–) clash in the World Chess Championship. Spanish manufacturer Indajesa supplied the pieces for the games, with the unique rook design modeled on Seville's Torre del Oro commemorating the host city.
Indajesa later produced reproduction Seville sets with the same rook, but the rook is about all that everyone agrees on. There is some debate over which is the correct knight: the rumour is that the set originally was conceived with typical Indajesa-style Spanish knights but the players themselves asked for the substitution with Chavet-style knights instead. The reproduction set came with the Chavet-style knights.
On the other hand, the reproduction's Queen, in typical Indajesan style without prongs on her coronet or the orb finial, is certainly wrong per the photos.
Fortunately, the reproduction of the rooks is accurate: the only debate there is over whether the Torre del Oro rooks are charming or ghastly. (I'm in the former camp: usually it is in the knights where Stauntonate chess set designers show their originality, and it is pleasing to see a set where the rooks are more individual instead.)
The cartoon above shows the version of the pieces in photos of the games, not the reproduction. This pattern, along with other Indajesa style Spanish Staunton and Spanish Regency style sets have been revived by Barcelona-based company Mora-Play.
Photos of the Seville set as used in the 1987 championship show Chavet-style knights, Queens with pronged coronet and orb finials, and the Torre del Oro rooks.
The Torre del Oro, or Tower of Gold, is a famous watchtower in Seville.
1992
These pieces were designed and produced by IM Biró Sándor. In a forum thread, Langer related some biographic details: Biró, a strong chess player and carpenter, is from a Hungarian-speaking community in modern-day Romania and began producing these pieces in 1992. They are thus also known as Romanian-Hungarian Tournament pieces. Under this name, other companies have produced copycat sets, although Biró still produces originals through his website.
1997
Deep Blue defeats Garry Kasparov
1990s?-2003
The Zagreb or Zagreb 59 are popular Staunton-mode chessmen known for their uncomfortable-looking knights: horses heads with two ninety degree turns.
From the name, one would think this design is based on the chessmen used in the 1959 Candidates tournament, held in Bled, Zagreb, and Belgrade. This appears to just be marketing: no photo of such pieces from the tournament have surfaced. Rather, photos and footage from Bled show what appear to be Dubrovnik-pattern pieces.
The Zagreb pattern appears to originate in the '90s or '00s from Frank Camaratta's House of Staunton, which described them as "accurate reproductions of one of the most popular chess sets used in the major International tournaments during the 1950s and 1960s" made "to commemorate that classic struggle [the 1959 tournament]". Authenticity aside, they are nevertheless very popular, and other manufacturers have their own lines with similar broken-back knights under a variety of names like Leningrad or Yugoslavian.
2013
The World Championship set, designed by Daniel Well for the 2013 Candidates Tournament in London, is a glossy, minimalist reinterpretation of the Staunton pattern. It has also been called the Pentagram pattern after Well's design company.
This pattern may be especially recognisable to those people who for some reason are more interested in playing chess, rather than collecting chess sets (or indeed, drawing them for an infographic), as it was with these chessmen Magnus Carlsen (1990–) won the Candidates and defeated Viswanathan Anand (1969–) to become World Chess Champion.
Magnus Carlsen with Well's chessmen at their first official outing, the 2013 Candidates.
2014
An art piece or a chess set? Each piece, wood on a chrome ball, functions like a weeble. Played on a special chessboard with concave squares, the pieces will jiggle about whenever moved.
Toronto company Umbra's Wobble Chess is intentionally impractical, so it is interesting that in the 19th C. German turner Schnmitthenner produced a line of self-righting chessmen where the same self-righting feature is intended to make chess more practical when played on the move.
2015
A cross-promotional design made to emulate the digital pieces in the Play Magnus app. These launched in 2015 in plastic, with a case and a roll-up board, produced by Studio Anne Carlsen/SAC games. Carlsen himself plays with some in this Chess.com video from 2015.
A couple of years later, other manufacturers including ChessBazaar and TheChessEmpire got in on the design and produced wooden copies. The original Play Magnus pieces are no longer available but some wooden reproductions still are: ChessBazaar, who first called theirs the Magnus Carlsen Championship Series, have since jettisoned the Carlsen name and now call such pieces just the Championship Series (not to be confused with their World Championship reproductions).
2022
Magnus Carlsen declines to defend his World Champion title.
2024
Musician Tyler Okonma's Daliesque melting and phallic chessmen, part of his Louis Vuitton collection, sparked divisive reactions. The Louis Vuitton Chess Box was priced at $18,800 USD at launch and billed in the fashion house's marketing as "a fun reinterpretation of the traditional chess game." It came with both the chess pieces and a Louis Vuitton branded chessboard-cum-carry case.
2024
These pieces are one of a number of recent chessmen patterns resulting from the additive manufacturing revolution.
Designed by Cuibono, these pieces were 3D printed from bioplastic and sold to raise money to rebuild homes in Kharkiv, Ukraine, following the war in Ukraine.
Heyesian, A visual history of chessmen v. 3.7.web. Copyright 2024-2025 Heyesian, all rights reserved.
NB Dates are meant to be indicative of when such patterns began to appear. Once designed, a pattern may continue to have been produced for a long time, and some modern companies specialise in reproductions of antique or vintage chessmen.
Special gratitude owed to Crumiller's database of auction catalogues.
Thanks to the redditors of r/chessporn for their encouragement and support.
history.chess.free.frchessantique.comsovietchesssets.comschaak-museum.nlchess-museum.comchess-collection.dechessantiquesonline.com
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