ON DESIGNING RELIABLE REPRODUCTIONS
Alan Dewey
Earlier this year I entered to play in the Land of the Sky chess tournament in Asheville, a
large weekend event with well over 200 players (click here to see a photo album of the event:
Land of the Sky 2012). As a newcomer to American tournaments I was somewhat surprised
when I first went in to the games hall to see that there were none of the standard plastic sets and
boards set up for play. I quickly discovered that here in America the players all bring their own
sets, clocks, and boards. Whoever plays black has the choice of using his own or his opponent’s
equipment. During breaks I walked around the hall and looked at the variety of sets in use: these
were all Staunton clones, of course, but that still left room for a good deal of choice. I saw simple
plastic sets of the common tournament type, wood sets with surface carving, sets having colours
other than black and white, and even fairly expensive and good quality sets and boards. So there
is a large market for reproduction sets.
The British 19th century sets have been more or less faithfully reproduced, from St.
George to Edinburgh Upright to Calvert style. Staunton sets are available endlessly.
Additionally, presentation sets such as the original Charlemagne, Mozarab, and Ager sets have
survived sufficiently intact to allow fairly accurate reproduction. Copies of almost every type of
set it seems are now offered. Those who choose to buy reproductions of these early sets have a
certain right to expect that the set is a fair facsimile of the original. In the cases of the familiar
stalwarts of play sets such as discussed above, there is no problem. Similarly, the elaborate sets
such as the Charlemagne, Mozarab, and Ager ones exist in full, and thus can be copied slavishly.
Being true to design details can prove a bit difficult, however, because in many cases
there are not always full sets available as reference. The common turned wood sets which would
have been in everyday use tended to disappear through the normal ravages of use, time and rot,
and few of these made it into illustrations in books and paintings. Moreover, even when there are
existing images, who is to say that the painter was slavishly accurate in reproducing the set in
question? Bear in mind that a painter or engraver is not a photographer. Thus in these cases
where there is not an actual set (even if there might be a painting/etching) we must also turn to
other, more nebulous sources in order to try to arrive at a fair idea of the set’s actual appearance.
It is possible that a combination of design conservatism in Europe can be pressed into our
aid. Because designs tended to change slowly, we may be able to look at later sets, compare them
with earlier illustrations, and perhaps gain a strong clue to the actual shape and form of the
pieces. A good example is the chess book of Luca Pacioli, first published in Italy at the
beginning of the 16th century, lost, and then rediscovered in 2006. The Pacioli set has been
reproduced from the book icons and although this is a faithful and well-researched copy of what
is drawn in the book it may not be exactly what a playing set of the time would have looked like.
Prior to Pacioli, Lucena and Damiano had already introduced the idea of printed icons of
chess pieces to show specific positions. It is valuable that the Pacioli Manuscript icons are hand
drawn. Of significance is the observation that the icons used do bear some resemblance to the
very few 18th century Italian wooden sets that still exist. It is possible that the illustrator of the
book had a playing set of a common type in mind when painting in the icons.
The question becomes then: can we directly compare any existing Italian chess pieces
which do seem a good match for the icons and by deduction make a fair stab at the shape of
those which don’t? I propose initially to take the Pacioli icons at face value and consider how
they might have been constructed depending on the materials used. Apart from the pawns, the
pieces generally are of the form: shallow base, thin stem, small thin collar, thin stem, large collar
etc. which is a series of shapes common in 18th and 19th century bone and wood sets. However,
some of the shapes in the diagrams do look a bit thick for bone to have been used, and the pawns
are not of the form one would expect if it were a bone set being iconised. Another possible
reason, then, for the thin stems and multiple collars on the pieces is that, if the set were wood
rather than bone, this would demonstrate a high degree of craftsmanship in turning. The upper
echelons of Italian renaissance society were already conversant with elaborately turned
decorative objects. Indeed, the Deutsches Elfenbeinmuseum in Erbach in Germany had rose
engine turned objects from as early as 1580. Turners of the time were highly skilled and would
use sophisticated techniques to show off their skills on even the lower priced products. Thus I
believe that the Pacioli set was of wood.
Now, what did all the pieces look like? We should also remember that if the icons in the
book were taken from a pre-existing playing set of a common type there is no way to trace the
designer or maker. Indeed, the design itself might well have been dozens or even hundreds of
years old only kept current by the conservatism in design discussed earlier. Is it reasonable to
suppose any similarity between the icons and the sets then in common use? My answer is yes,
just as in today’s books the author intends that the diagrams be used by his readers and thus must
take (or at least should have taken) into account the kind of sets in play. The other known
alternative would have been to use letters to represent pieces as did the French in the early 19th
century, but in the Pacioli manuscript this was not the case.
We can only assume that Pacioli expected his readers to be able, for some puzzles at
least, to work from the book. To do this they must have been able to easily identify the different
pieces from the icons. As horse’s heads and castles for knights and rooks were already known,
why then did the illustrator of this manuscript not use these more easily differentiated symbols? I
can only think that he was working from or visualizing a set he already owned. In English St.
George pattern sets, for example, the cheaper (and often smaller) sets had the knights cut aslope
which cost less to make than having the knights’ heads carved. So perhaps the set from which
Pacioli drew his icons was a cheaper version of an established chess set style which in its more
elaborate and expensive realization would have had some carved features. It is possible that the
disks of the knight in Pacioli’s set were cut and that the rook had some decoration to the raised
edge of the upper disc; such details would not have been clear in two-dimensioned icons.
Based on the icons in the Pacioli manuscript, some theoretical ideas regarding design
conservatism and use of chess play iconography, knowledge of other contemporaneous set
designs, and knowledge of later sets that may have employed similar design solutions, I would
design a Pacioli set reproduction along certain specific lines. It would be of wood, probably
fruitwood as this was the usual continental European choice outside of France. It would have
Royals and pawns that were exactly like the icons, except the pawns might be a bit smaller than
they appear in the diagrams following H J R Murray, page 770. Aside from the minor differences
between the pieces as can be seen in the manuscript, the knights, rooks, and bishops would also
have cuts on the upper disks to differentiate them (a design solution seen in Regence sets,
incidentally). I would colour the sides red and black, as is shown in the manuscript.
So what’s the big deal? This is pretty much what the current reproduction of this set
happens to look like. My point here is to demonstrate that with the resources freely available to
anyone with internet access along with some historical research and a little knowledge of turning
techniques, it is possible to either corroborate or invalidate various interpretations of the
appearance of particular chess sets. Moreover, this sort of method can be extended to researching
sets about which even less is known, such as that iconized in the manuscript by Damiano. It also
provides an important method of collateral verification of what we believe about other sets such
as the one in the 1616 engraving by Heyden of Gustavus Selenus, the 16 th century painting of
Sofonisba Anguissola, and other such sets whose physical incarnations have long since vanished.
There could be a place in even the most rarefied and exotic collection for well-made
copies of such very rare sets. Indeed, in some cases the copies themselves become sought after in
their own right. For those collectors who have long desired an example of some very rare set this
route of acquiring a reliable reproduction is the only way to see, study, and play it. Hence we
must begin to acquire the tools of assessing the reproductions.
I had a long exchange about this with Grega of Noj Turning, Hungary. Also, at the 11th hour this
article benefited greatly from a discussion with Rick Knowlton (aka on EBay, Rick of Ricks or,
more amusingly, Rick o’Fricks), of the USA.