Chess Masterpieces: One Thousand Years of Extraordinary Chess Sets Review

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Chess Masterpieces: One Thousand Years of Extraordinary Chess Sets ReviewChess Masterpieces feels like the new Keats (Chessmen for Collectors, Illustrated Guide to World Chess Sets.) It's full of the highest end collector sets, the likes of which ordinary mortals will never see, it's even bigger than the Keats, even prettier, and at least as full of factual inaccuracies. Buy it for spectacular photographs. It's more than worth the money if you love chess sets. I will say Dean leans towards elaborate figural sets more than normal. For a high-end chess collection it's odd (and refreshing to me) there is not one Jaques set in this book. If you're a Stauntonophile you might consider skipping this book. I can't stress enough how lovely it is, though. I want to say this good thing about it, but what is going to follow now is a list of bad things about, and I don't want to say only bad things. I feel we should hold our non-fiction material up to a higher standard of fact checking than this, so I feel the need to run down some inaccuracies that jump out right away.
Chapter 1: Page 15 etc... the Cox-Forbes theory that the earliest version of chess was the 4 player Indian game which was played with dice hasn't been disproven, but the evidence is overwhelmingly against it. Chess might have developed in India, but the 2 player version without dice came first. Dean might have reason to believe the other theory, but he should at least mention that it's only a theory, and an unpopular one since the 19 century, not pass it off as certain fact. Wikipedia is much better than Dean here.
Chapter 2: Looking good till... page 32... This is a 20th century British ivory set by turned Bertram Jones. His design was based on ivory rose water sprinklers which people had mistaken for chessmen. There's no such thing as an 18th century Turkish set that looks anything like this. It's not Turkish. It's not Islamic. The rose water sprinklers were based on lotus blossoms. Jones mistakenly carved veins in the petals, making them possibly more tulip like, though they look more like leaves to me... I don't recall tulip petals being so veiny. The set on page 34 is also 20th century and not Muslim at all.
Chapter 3: Page 38... The theory that the Lewis Chessmen come from Iceland appears to be based only the incorrect claim that "Norwegians have never used a bishop in their sets." That may be true, but the Norsemen living in what is now Norway who were not "Norwegians" yet certainly did play the game with bishops, and it appears there's a lot more evidence for Trondheim Norway than anywhere else in the world. This is another place where the wikipedia article for the Lewis chessmen (which is free) seems to have more accurate information.
... lots of material I know nothing about and can't comment on and then ...
Page 118: Regence sets weren't called "St George" before they were called Regence. Regence was a popular style in France before it had a name. It was so popular the Cage de le Regence was full chessmen in that style, so they became known as "Regence" sets. They weren't called "Directoire" sets (as some people, not Dean, claim) before they were called Regence either... I imagine they were just called chess sets. "St George" sets were similarly named after the St George chess club in England. They have nothing at all to do with Regence sets. Keats calls the Faience set St George in his book. I can only imagine Dean is using that as a source. I guess this is a danger of seeing only the fanciest, highest-end collector sets. Dean doesn't care for the plainer designs, even Staunton. Most collectors can easily tell the difference between a St George set and a Regence set, but not if their collection is so full of elaborate solid gold figural sets they don't have any of the basics lying around. The faience set, usually just called a "French Faience set" is one of my favorite chess sets of all time. It's an incredibly elaborate variation on the Regence design. Some people call certain kinds of Regence sets Directoire, or Lyon, and that's mostly ok by me, but St George is a different kind of set of set all together. It just gets confusing if you use that label here. There aren't any St George sets in this book.
Page 120: The set in the picture is 20th century, or at least mostly 20th century. The pieces commonly mistaken for Pique-sable sand or cushion sets are for the game of Jonchets, as Dean mentions. One reason, which he doesn't mention, they can't be chessmen is all of them are the same color. The black pieces in Dean's set have most certainly been died brown in 20th century. Also all of the pawns are most certainly from the 20th century. Some of the other pieces might be 19th century Jonchets, but they don't look like it to me. Here's how the story goes... someone sees a full set of Jonchets, a king, queen, jack, horse, flag, and hook (to grab the pieces,) and imagines they look like chessmen, sells them as chessmen claiming they come from 18th century Dieppe or earlier, because that's where all the good French ivory sets come from. They're very early... that's why no complete sets exist, just these groups of 4 or 5 pieces in a box... labled "Jonchets..." for some reason. I have to admit I *love* the idea of these stick men as chessmen. I'm not alone. They're so unique cool every collector wanted a set, and all of a sudden collectors were buying up many sets of Spillikins trying to make a complete Pique Sable set. Bertram Jones was faking up complete sets to sell with furled flags for pawns. (Dean's pawns look completely different, so I don't think I can say he has another set by Jones here. I may be wrong. Jones son published two books "Notes from the Turning Shop" which are on my wishlist. If I get one some day I may see some better documentation of his work and come back to this review with a better idea of which 20th century English fake 18th century sets are by Bertram Jones.) The black pieces were died red or often decorated with orange and green lines. I guess some sets like Deans were died brown. The are several problesm with the idea that 18th century French aristocracy played chess in the sand at the beaches of Dieppe... 1. there is no sand on the beach at Dieppe... it's rocks... 2. French aristocracy brought chairs to the beach and would not be caught dead sitting on the ground. 3. the French spiked sets for carriage rides Dean talks about were ordinary pegged travel sets. I've only ever seen one period drawing of a "cushion set" and it looked nothing like these Jonchets, much more like a regular travel set with pieces short enough to stick in a small cushion and play a practical game of chess. Jonchets are much too tall. Yes, they're spectacularly fun as pique-sable chess in the sand. I have a set myself. But the idea of pique-sable chess is nothing more than a 20th century invention with some very attractive "legend" behind it.
page 135: There's nothing wrong with what's on this page. It's just Dean could have said this is a Selenus style set. Calling it simply an "Abstract" set instead makes me think more Dean doesn't spend much time around non figural sets. The various 18th and 19th century abstract chess designs all have names and they are useful. The Faience pieces are Regence, this silver set is Selenus. There's a Staunton set on page 155... at least Dean calls that Staunton instead of a new abstract design based on Greek columns, Elgin Marbles, etc... He could call this set Selenus as well. The Murano glass set on pages 161-162 is a Selenus as well.
That's about it for my complaining, though I wouldn't be surprised if the information in the book I know nothing about is just as spotty as the information I can confirm or deny. That's the thing. I haven't read this book cover to cover, and I'm not motivated to because can't trust what I'm reading. I can't learn from this book I don't already know without double checking the facts in other sources. If you want a good book on chess sets with reliable accurate information, I suggest Gareth Williams' "Master Pieces," which is also a pretty book, though much smaller, and not so spectacular. I also can't recommend this book as a reference for anyone but the super-rich chess collector, as it does skip over the most common collector sets in favor of the very highest-end stuff most of us will only ever see in photographs and museums... then again as photographs go this book has the best photographs of those very fine sets of any of my references. I do love this book and will love it for a long time. It was an excellent buy.Chess Masterpieces: One Thousand Years of Extraordinary Chess Sets OverviewThese remarkable chess sets span civilizations, chronicling the game and its design beginning with the earliest known pieces and coming up to the surprising present. Considering chess through the perspectives of art and history, the engaging text touches upon the influences of local cultures and available materials, as well as the battles, rulers, and political factions that often inspired thematic sets. In addition to classic sets produced by Wedgwood, Meissen, and Murano, Chess Masterpieces includes the first ever comparison of two sets created by Fabergé (only one of which was previously known to exist), and extensive examples of 20th- and 21st-century sets crafted by artists such as Man Ray, Marcel Duchamp, Salvador Dalí, and Damien Hirst.

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