French "Dragoon" Chess Set, mid 18th century

Here is an extremely rare French chess set of the "Dragoon" type, named after the distinctive helmets on the knights. The king size is 9.5 cm. The pieces are made of boxwood, one side natural, the other side stained dark brown. The kings with a crown, the queens with a petal hat. The rooks as tall and slender towers with crenellation and fine brickwork. The bishops with a wide hat with a flattened conical top. The pawns with a baluster shaped body and a small conical top. The center pieces of this set, however, are the knights, which have very distinctive hats, or rather helmets with an accentuated peak and a plume on top. Peaked hats of this type were in use for mounted cavalrymen since the 16th century, for example the Cuirassiers forming part of Gottfried Heinrich Graf zu Pappenheim's forces in the Thirty Year War. Later, this type of plumed helmet became famous for the mounted "Dragoon" forces, which is why this type has been labelled "Dragoon" type.

There are two comparable sets in the Rochford Collection, one of which is very similar in style and which came with a provenance making it possible to date it back to at least 1765. I therefore assume that this set here is of approximately the same age, i.e. dating perhaps to the 1760s (or even earlier).