Chess set

Unknown

late 19th century · Carnelian and white chalcedony · European Sculpture and Decorative Arts

The king, knights, and pawns are all warriors, the queen, a lady, and the bishops shaven priests. Exceptionally, there is no suggestion of a horse in the knights. The rooks consist of square towers surmounted by two incurving hornlike projections, which on Chinese and Japanese buildings are sometimes in the form of fish. These same details appear on the top of one of the towers borne by the elephants in another set, 48.174.160a–p, aa–pp (q.v.). The cutting of the ball element of the pedestals suggests the cutting common in Chinese ivory sets. The set was acquired in Shanghai between 1920 and 1939 and probably was made in Japan for Chinese re-export.

Artist

Unknown

Date

late 19th century

Medium

Carnelian and white chalcedony

Culture

Japanese

Department

European Sculpture and Decorative Arts

Credit line

Gift of Gustavus A. Pfeiffer, 1948