{"meta":{"version":"2.1","_links":{"self":{"href":"https://api.vam.ac.uk/v2/object/O102796"},"collection_page":{"href":"https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O102796/"}},"images":{"_primary_thumbnail":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2013GK6199/full/!100,100/0/default.jpg","_iiif_image":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2013GK6199/","_alt_iiif_image":[],"imageResolution":"high","_images_meta":[{"assetRef":"2013GK6199","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2013GK6203","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2013GK6204","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2013GK6206","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2006AD1382","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2017KC9853","copyright":"©Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false}]},"see_also":{"_iiif_pres":"https://iiif.vam.ac.uk/collections/O102796/manifest.json","_alt_iiif_pres":[]}},"record":{"systemNumber":"O102796","accessionNumber":"2998-1856","objectType":"Chess piece","titles":[{"title":"A Knight","type":"generic title"}],"summaryDescription":"This is an ivory chess piece, representing a knight, made in about 1510-1530, in Germany. An identical piece is in the British Museum (Dalton, Catalogue, No. 494), while another carrying a falcon is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The work is not of highest quality and this, together with the diminutive size of the pieces, points to mass production rather than a commission. \n\nBy 1200 chess was a popular game in Europe, having been brought from India via the Middle East in the early medieval period. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the playing of chess became established as a courtly – and courting – pastime par excellance, as numerous references to it in written Romances, illustrations in manuscripts and depictions on works of art attest. \r\nBy the beginning of the Gothic period the principal pieces had already taken human form. The castle though does not appear to have taken the form of a building until the sixteenth century, and is most often represented as a mounted figure not unlike a knight. It is no9teworthy that hardly any chessboards have survived. The overwhelming majority of chess pieces were made in non-Parisian workshops and the most active workshops were based further north, in Scandinavia, Germany and England\r\n\r\nThe game of chess has from its inception carried chivalric and military associations. These qualities made the game a suitable intellectual pastime for the elite of Renaissance Europe. Luxury chess boards and finely carved chess pieces became common possessions in palaces from Italy to England and as today, color was used to distinguish between opposing chessmen. \r\n","physicalDescription":"Carved ivory chess piece of an equestrian figure of an armoured knight, standing in the stirrups and dressed in armour with pleated skirt, spurs and fur (?) hat with head turned to the right and carrying a horseman's hammer (pollaxe) in the right hand and the reins of his horse in his left. The horse is richly caparisoned, with small crotal bells hanging from its reins and trappings and a larger bell on its back, and stands on a plain moulded base.","artistMakerPerson":[{"name":{"text":"Unknown","id":"A1848"},"association":{"text":"","id":""},"note":""}],"artistMakerOrganisations":[],"artistMakerPeople":[],"materials":[{"text":"ivory","id":"AAT11857"}],"techniques":[{"text":"carving","id":"AAT53149"}],"materialsAndTechniques":"Carved elephant ivory","categories":[{"text":"Games","id":"THES48947"},{"text":"Sculpture","id":"THES48896"}],"styles":[],"collectionCode":{"text":"SCP","id":"THES48600"},"images":["2013GK6199","2013GK6203","2013GK6204","2013GK6206","2006AD1382","2017KC9853"],"imageResolution":"high","galleryLocations":[{"current":{"text":"62","id":"THES49739"},"free":"","case":"CA18","shelf":"","box":""}],"partTypes":[[{"text":"Chess piece","id":""}]],"contentWarnings":[{"apprise":"","note":""}],"placesOfOrigin":[{"place":{"text":"Germany","id":"x28873"},"association":{"text":"made","id":"x28654"},"note":""}],"productionDates":[{"date":{"text":"1510-1530","earliest":"1510-01-01","latest":"1530-12-31"},"association":{"text":"made","id":"x28654"},"note":""}],"associatedObjects":[{"object":{"text":"REPRO.1873-311","id":"O1226736"},"association":"Reproduction"}],"creditLine":"","dimensions":[{"dimension":"Height","value":"7","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":""},{"dimension":"Length","value":"5.2","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"at base","note":""},{"dimension":"Depth","value":"2","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":""},{"dimension":"Weight","value":"0.04","unit":"kg","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":""}],"dimensionsNote":"Measured for the Medieval and Renaissance Galleries","marksAndInscriptions":[],"objectHistory":"Purchased in 1856 (£2 16s); according to Longhurst it was acquired in Paris, although this has not been confirmed in the Museum records. \n\n","historicalContext":"An identical piece is in the British Museum (Dalton, Catalogue, No. 494), while another carrying a falcon is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Gesta, XXIV/2, 1985, p. 171, fig. 9 described as Netherlandish, first quarter 16th century). Another, now headless, is in Munich (Berliner, R, Die Bildwerker der Bayerischen .....Museum, IV, Elfenheim, Augsburg, 1926, Cat. No. 65, Pl. 16).\r\nAll four chesspieces are similar; probably from the same workshop and possibly even from the same chess set. Comparisons of costume details seen in tapestries and manuscript illuminations support a date in the first quater of the sixteenth century. The Mirror of the Medieval World catalogue entry suggests a Netherlandish origin, noting a particularly striking similarity in the type of hat, skirt and horse trappings depicted in a series of four tapestries which originated in Tournai about 1515 (see Boccara,1971 nos. 30-32). While this is an accurate observation, the fashions of this time were not contained within political boundaries and the clothing depicted could equally be German, maybe South German.\r\nThe object therefore can currently only be attributed to either Germany or the Netherlands.  \r\n\r\nThe game of chess has from its inception carried chivalric and military associations. These qalities made the game a suitable intellectual passtime for the elite of Renaissance Europe. Luxury chess boards and and finely carved chess pieces became common possessions in palaces from Italy to England and as today, colour was used to distinguish between opposing chessmen.","briefDescription":"Chess piece, ivory, a mounted knight, Germany, ca. 1510-1530","bibliographicReferences":[{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"B.D.B, <font -u>Mirror of the Medieval World</font> (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1999), p. 228"},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Inventory of Art Objects Acquired in the Year 1856. <u>In</u>: <u>Inventory of the Objects in the Art Division of the Museum at South Kensington, Arranged According to the Dates of their Acquisition. Vol I</u>. London: Printed by George E. Eyre and William Spottiswoode for H.M.S.O., 1868, p. 31"},{"reference":{"text":"Longhurst, Margaret H., <u>Catalogue of Carvings in Ivory</u>. Part II. London: Victoria and Albert Museum, 1929","id":"AUTH329986"},"details":"p.87","free":""},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"for similar knight see: <u>Gesta<u/>, XXIV/2, 1985, p. 171, fig. 9"},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Wixom, William D., ed. <u>Mirror of the Medieval World<u/>, exhib. cat., New York: 1999, cat.no.289, fig. 37"},{"reference":{"text":"Maskell, W., <u>A Description of the Ivories Ancient and Medieval in the South Kensington Museum</u>, London, 1872","id":"AUTH330219"},"details":"p. 11","free":""},{"reference":{"text":"Westwood, J O. A descriptive catalogue of the Fictile Ivories in the South Kensington Museum. With an Account of the Continental Collections of Classical and Mediaeval Ivories. London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1876","id":"AUTH315345"},"details":"p. 292","free":""},{"reference":{"text":"Williamson, Paul and Davies, Glyn, <u>Medieval Ivory Carvings, 1200-1550</u>, (in 2 parts), V&A Publishing, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 2014","id":"AUTH332632"},"details":"part II, p. 727","free":""}],"production":"","productionType":{"text":"","id":""},"contentDescription":"","contentPlaces":[],"associatedPlaces":[],"contentPerson":[],"associatedPerson":[],"contentOrganisations":[],"associatedOrganisations":[],"contentPeople":[],"associatedPeople":[],"contentEvents":[],"associatedEvents":[],"contentOthers":[{"text":"knights (chessmen)","id":"AAT233378"},{"text":"horse","id":"x30117"}],"contentConcepts":[],"contentLiteraryRefs":[],"galleryLabels":[],"partNumbers":["2998-1856"],"accessionNumberNum":"2998","accessionNumberPrefix":"","accessionYear":1856,"otherNumbers":[],"copyNumber":"","aspects":["WHOLE"],"assets":["2019LW8827"],"recordModificationDate":"2025-09-22","recordCreationDate":"2004-08-25","availableToBook":false}}