Enchanted Chessmen:
A World of Fantasy

An Exhibit of Chessmen
through History

Fine Arts and
Special Collections Department
John G. White Collection of Chess

CHESS EXHIBIT CATALOG: by Alice N. Loranth

CHESS EXHIBIT CATALOG ORDERING INFORMATION:

To view highlights of the exhibit catalog, select from the following list:

1. Chessmen with Baluster Motif. Carved hornbeam wood with carved ivory tops and trim. French, 18th century.

2. Group of Chess Players. Highly glazed, gilded, polychrome, freestanding "Ludwigsburg" porcelain figurines. German, 1758-1793.

3. Scherzo. O.L. Harvey's tenth design in his "Adventure in Chess Design" series. Deliberately conceived as an irresponsible, playful prototype. American, April 1964.

4. Shenandoah. O.L. Harvey's twenty-third design, the final set in his main series. This design satisfied his quest for what he considered an ideal set of chessmen. American, December 1964.

5. Blind Man's Chess Set. Cast in bronze in the form of Cambodian deities. Pawn, King, Queen, and Knight. Cambodian, 1970s.

6. Chessmen. Marble or quartzite Chessmen in Korean costume. Korean, 20th century.

7. Mythological Chessmen. Hand-carved hardwood chessmen depicting the good and evil personages of the Hindu pantheon. Balinese, 18th century (?).

8. Cantonese Export Chessmen. Carved ivory figurines on circular pedestals, embellished with puzzleballs. Chinese, late 18th century.

9. Chessmen in Simple Religious Attire. Superbly carved ivory chessmen on oval bases. Japanese, mid-18th century.

10. Chessmen or Draught Pieces. Glazed pottery pieces. Egyptian, ca. 1304 B.C. - 730 B.C., 19th-20th dynasties.

11. Dice. Ivory, bone, and stone pieces. Egyptian, 300 B.C. - 300 A.D.

12. Chessmen with leather board. Carved ivory and ebony chessmen on tall circular pedestals and round bases. English, 19th century.

13. Chessmen. Enameled and gilt silver chessmen on reticulated, foliated standards. An elegant and beautifully crafted Viennese set. Austrian, ca. 1835.

14. Chessmen. Wire sculpture chessmen suggesting medieval army in abstract design. Germany, 20th century.

15. Lewis Chessmen. Plaster of paris reproductions of original walrus ivory pieces, considered to be the outstanding medieval chessmen of the world. Scandinavian, ca. 1200.

16. Chessmen in Hungarian Peasant Costume. Painted wood chessmen with polychrome details. Hungarian, 1920-1930.

17. Mario Cooper Chessmen. Machined by E.E. Marble in steel and brass. Clearly defined abstract design in tubular and conical shapes, made for the John G. White Collection of Chess by Mario Cooper. American, 1979-1980. Board made by Don Drum of Akron, Ohio, 1967.

18. Chessmen, Influenced by the Spanish "Pulpit" Style. Carved, vividly painted chessmen on bulbous bases surmounted by heads and half-busts. Mexican, 19th - 20th centuries.

19. Crusaders. Hard-paste ceramic chessmen cast in a mold, accented with gold crosses and gold trim. Elaborately gilt board cast in four separate parts. Canadian (?), 20th century.

20. Falling Boxes, by Aggie Zed of Richmond, Virginia. Roughly glazed ceramic human figures portraying varied degrees of agony. A unique artistic concept based on a stage production. American, early 1980s.

21. Reynard the Fox. Glazed polychrome pottery pieces depicting the characters of this classic medieval beast epic. A favorite theme for chessmen design. American, ca. 1944.

As a universal game played the world over by young and old alike, chess has the richest literature of all games. Students of chess explicate its technical aspects, record its achievements and failures, and document both the major and minor events of its history as its proponents battle -- displaying their skills, strategical knowledge, and acts of daring imagination over the sixty-four squares of the chessboard. Chess has also attracted an amazing variety of enthusiasts and has generated wide human interest over more than ten centuries. Around the inner circle of its champions, students, and aspiring masters, it has attracted to its orbit a diverse peripheral band of writers, critics, scientists, historians, archaeologists, and artists. Consequently, chess enjoys the widest representation in the general literature: from simple folktales to sophisticated romances, from philosophy to psychology, and from mathematics to allegory, religion, and art.

The Cleveland Public Library's John G. White Collection of Chess reflects the broadest representation of the game, as it is by far the world's largest repository of recorded information on the subject. It was the purpose of Mr. John G. White, the founder and benefactor, to record the history, character, and impact of the game as fully as possible. By now, the chess collection comprises over 33,500 volumes of monographs, manuscripts, serials, and bound periodicals, as well as rich archival collections of pictures, chess columns, tournament records, chess problems, documents, and chessmen.

In the past, the John G. White Collection has presented several exhibits focusing on various aspects of chess literature. This exhibition is the first ever to display its complete collection of chessmen and chess sets, all acquired as gifts. This present exhibition calls attention to the variety of designs and artistic experiments which have marked the history of the game from the ancient Egyptian game pieces to the trends of the 1990s.

Marilyn Gell Mason
Director
Cleveland Public Library

Building on the firm foundation of rare and specialized holdings, the Library, after Mr. White's death, placed several separately-maintained special collections, including its Rare Books Collection, under the curatorial care of the John G. White Department. In 1982, to reflect the true nature of holdings and expanded scope of responsibilities, the John G. White Department was renamed Special Collections. Since 1982 it has been administered as part of the Cleveland Public Library's Fine Arts and Special Collections Department.

The primary purpose of the chess collection is to continue to develop and maintain the most widely-based documentation of the history of chess. It is a special library within the Library, devoted to a specific subject area; it is a reference, research, and information facility but not a museum. However, it has objects, chessmen and chess sets, which are the tools of the game. As artifacts, their study and documentation can best be promoted by the merging of the written word with visual resources and the physical representation of the pieces themselves.

The initial gift of Mr. White's original collection of 428 chessmen has been greatly enriched in the last twenty-five years through gifts, numbering well over 2,000 pieces. Growing interest in the history, design, and collecting of chess pieces prompted and justified a focused campaign of collection development through gifts and donations. When soliciting gifts or selecting from gift offerings, the curatorial concern was the documentation of design development, as opposed to rarity.

The aim was to capture quality examples of historic trends, national characteristics, and artistic experiments. Building a representative study collection of chessmen is an ongoing challenge. The present exhibit is a tribute to the many generous donors who have made possible the enrichment of this section of the chess collection.

The exhibit occupies four adjacent exhibit areas on the third floor of Main Library. The plan and scope of the exhibit was developed within the confines of existing holdings and available facilities. The eleven exhibit cases of the John G. White Exhibit Corridor are devoted to the presentation of an experiment in the design of chessmen. Consisting of twenty-five sets, this section of the exhibit presents the efforts of O.L. Harvey of Silver Spring, Maryland, who devoted several years of his life to developing a design of chessmen which would satisfy his quest for an ideal chess set. This experiment in design development is presented as a unit within a confined exhibit area. This section of the exhibit is highlighted by an overview of chess literature and events (not described in this catalog) from the early beginnings of the game to the recent victory of Grandmaster Kasparov in his battle with IBM's multi-million-dollar computer, Deep Blue.

The exhibit case in the third floor lobby area displays chess sets from Korea, South Asia, and Indonesia. These sets, the largest ones in the collection, fit well together in the single available case suitable for displaying the largest objects.

The thirteen cases of the Fine Arts Exhibit Corridor dictated the presentation of chessmen by geographic areas, historic design examples, ethnic and contemporary artistic concepts, as well as representational sets based on a historic theme, a story, or an allegory.

The fourth exhibit area, the chess display case in Special Collections, gives an abbreviated introduction to special purpose sets, some new chess variants, and party game take-offs on traditional chess.

Although there are more valuable chess sets dispersed in museum collections around the world, this exhibit presents a cohesive historical overview in one location. It also enhances one's appreciation for, and pleasure in the varied expressions of fanciful human imagination evident even in a small subject area.

Alice N. Loranth, Head
Fine Arts and Special
Collections Department