"The Chess players" Topic

Superb!

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Amicalement
Armand

!!

The board is set up wrong. Always a black square in the upper right as you look at the board. Otherwise neat.

Black Knight to King's 5. "Check."

Oh, and would two obviously Ottoman Muslim men use a chess set with cross-topped Kings?

Still, exceptionally stunning diorama, based on a painting, the blog states. I think I recall the painting, too.

Happy you like it boys!. (smile)

Amicalement
Armand

Pretty cool

Very nicely done. Parzival, you're right, but one sees the problem Those are Staunton pieces--created in 1849, and the standard for tournament play for better than a century, I think.
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I'm not good enough with the costuming to date the scene. It may be quite a bit older--and would you recognize the pieces and board if they were right for an earlier period? 21st, much the same thing. There were 100-square boards into the Renaissance, and the "Mad Queen Rule" dates back only about that far. How far back is "always?"

Painting was done in 1896, so after the creation of the Staunton sets (1849), but less than 50 years, and thus not likely to have been in use in a coffee house in Instanbul (one assumes, from attire, etc.).

The actual painting appears to be a little less defined on the identity and placement of the pieces, but that could just be due to the size limits of the various images available online. I think the placement by the diorama creator is likely his own whim, especially as the setup includes either a white pawn on its own first rank (an impossibility in chess) or two white bishops sharing the black tiles (extremely unlikely but not completely impossible).

A little poking about the Internet turned up this site on the history of chess: link

Scroll down a good bit to see the pieces from an Islamic culture of late 19th, early 20th C.. Very abstract, and very unlike the standard European designs as Staunton.

These echo the somewhat indistinct abstract shapes in the painting the diorama is based on.

Glad you like it too guys!. (smile)

Amicalement
Armand

Looking again, I think the diorama board is set up as a game of checkers (draughts), not chess. All the pieces seem to be only on black squares. Probably just an aesthetic choice by the artist who may have wanted an "open" look to the game.