Early Modernist Chessmen
I cannot tell a lot about this chess set other than I very much like its unusual look. The sculptural design seems to be rooted in the visual language of the European modernist movements of the early 20th century, with elements of Art Deco, Bauhaus-inspired abstraction and organic modernism. Rather than depicting figurative or classic chess iconography, the pieces are reduced to elementary geometric forms, such as cylinders, cones, spheres etc. A conservative dating would be first half of the 20th century, probably from the interwar-period.
The white side pieces are made from Karelian birch, which in my view is one of the most wonderful and most special materials used for chess sets. The dark pieces seem to be made of walnut. The king size is 6.8 cm. All pieces have green felts on the underside. The pieces are shown on a board made with Karelian birch veneer, which is not original to the pieces, but a very good fit in my personal opinion. So far, I have only seen one almost similar example of this set.
