Chessmen (32)

The European king and queen, possibly Carlos I of Portugal and Queen Marie Amélie, are represented by crowned heads, the bishop by an episcopal head wearing an orientalized miter. Their opponents are Chinese, the king with an elegantly fretted headdress. Both knights are horse heads of a type common in European chess sets of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. An echo of Chinese chess, which has pieces named cannons, is in the mortars surmounted by flags for the rooks. The pawns are heads of Europeans or Chinese on baluster stands. The type of chessmen composed of balusters surmounted by human heads appears also in Bosnia-Herzegovina in the nineteenth century (Wichmann, Chess, pl. 156). Pieces of this type are practical for play. The theme is obviously Europeans and Chinese; the combination of Occidental and Oriental features has been satisfactorily accomplished.