Italian Val Gardena Chess Set, 1920s
A figural chess set made in Val Gardena, South Tyrol (Italy) in the 1920s. The pieces are carved from Swiss stone pine (pinus cembra) with a king size of 8.3 cm. The kings as royals carrying sceptre and orb. The queens resembling a Christian Madonna (for a reason, see below). The rooks as towers on a rock. The knights as rearing horses. The bishops as sitting hunting dogs looking up to their master. The pawns mixed in both sides consisting of four hares and four hunting dogs resembling Tyrolean hounds (Tiroler Bracke).
A fellow chess collector made me aware of a letter dated October 12th, 1929, which Nicholas Size of Buttermere wrote to the British Chess Magazine, where the letter was subsequently published. Nicholas Size was born in Liverpool in 1866. After working some years in railway administration, he reopened the long-derelict Victoria Hotel (today the Bridge Hotel) in Buttermere in 1920. He was an avid writer and a promoter of tourism, so the letter to the BCM did not come as a surprise. In the letter, Size reported that he came across some extraordinary chessmen in a woodcarver's shop in Northern Italy during a holiday. The picture published together with the letter shows the Tyrolean hound pawns and the text mentions that the pawns in another set were hares, just as the mix of pawns in the set shown here.
The name of the maker of the chess set is Vincenzo Demetz Figlio of Ortisei (German name "Sankt Ulrich"), Val Gardena. The Demetz carving shop was established in 1872 and exists until today under the name "Demetz Art Studio", specialising on religious art. The following information is provided on their website, and it even mentions chess sets:
Vinzenz Demetz Senior (1802-1882) was a merchant by profession. Through his marriage to Marianna Purger in 1834, he came into possession of the Cësa da Fëur (the family residence). She was the sister of Johann Babtist Purger, the then mayor of Ortisei and builder of the Val Gardena road. Vinzenz Demetz Senior ran a general store on the church square in the centre of Ortisei. His main goods were tobacco and salt, but he also sold wood carvings. The art of wood carving in Val Gardena dates back to the 16th century.
The business was taken over by the next generation, Vinzenz Demetz Junior (1849-1887), who passed it on to his heir, Franz Demetz (1880-1959). He was a highly respected businessman in Val Gardena, a so-called “publisher” of wood carvings. He not only changed the business name to “Vincenzo Demetz Figlio”, but also began to produce sacred statues and sculptures, crucifixes, figures of saints and even carved altars in his own workshops, in addition to the usual wooden toys such as the world-famous wooden dolls and chess pieces.
One of his sons, the entrepreneur Ivo Demetz (born 1928), married Brigitte Riffeser, an “ANRI” daughter, in 1962. The company “ANRI” (acronym for Anton Riffeser) was already the largest company in the Val Gardena valley in the post-war period, with over 200 employees. It mainly produced and sold nativity figures, but also other small wood carvings all over the world.
The family business “Vincenzo Demetz Figlio” was renamed “Demetz Art Studio GmbH” (www.demetz.com) in 1987 by the fourth generation. The company is now one of the global market leaders in the niche market of Christian art, ‘ars sacra’. Large-scale wood carvings (60 cm and above) are produced in their own workshops. These are mainly sacred art in the form of statues, sculptures and monuments in five materials: wood, plastic, bronze, marble and mosaic.
In 1997, the Ivo Demetz family rebuilt the family residence, the “Cesa da Four”, from the ground up. It now houses, among other things, the company headquarters and the showroom of Demetz Art Studio GmbH, which is currently managed by Reto Demetz (born 1975) as managing director. With him, the company continues into its fifth generation.
