Chessmen (32) and box-board
Design attributed to Andreas Schluter, Danzig and the Court of Berlin
Friederich Donaleitis
Not on view
The pieces and the board they came with were probably made by Friederich Donaleitis of Königsberg in 1778 from a seventeenth-century prototype. The bases are boldly engraved with numbers from 1 to 32 on the underside. It has been thought that the set represents the battle of Panormus (present-day Palermo), fought in 250 B.C. between the Romans under Metellus and the Carthiginians under Hasdrubal, but this is hypothetical. The subject of Romans and Barbarians was a popular one in all forms of art.