Bavarian Handcarved Chess Set, ca. 1930-1960

Bavarian Handcarved Chess Set, ca. 1930-1960

A special hand-carved chess set from Bavaria, which bears the signature of the Upper Bavarian carvers from Oberammergau and is particularly similar to the style of Edo Lang, who often made caricature-like figures in traditional costumes.

The pieces are carved from wood. The height of the king is 10 cm. In most chess sets, the knights are the most spectacular pieces. Here it is the other way round. With the exception of the knights, all the pieces are individual and different, only the knights are all carved in the same style.

The white king and queen wear traditional Bavarian costumes typical of the rural population. The black king with his fine frock coat and striped trousers looks more urban and bourgeois. The white rooks are square with pointed roofs, the black rooks are round. The bishops on the white side consist of a policeman with a club and a night watchman with a bell, both in matching uniforms. The black bishops are a postman with an envelope in his hand and a guard soldier with a drawn sabre in his right hand. The pawns on both sides are so marvellous and individual that I photographed them separately. On the white side, there is a man with a pipe, a traveller with a suitcase, a hiker with a rucksack on his back, a farmer with a pig under his arm, a musician with an accordion and - in keeping with the Oktoberfest - a man in traditional costume with a beer mug in his hand, which is adorned with the ‘HB’ for the Munich Hofbräuhaus. On the black side, there is a farmer carrying a chicken, a hunter with a shouldered rifle, a farmer with a large turnip in his hand and a man with a toothache, recognisable by the cloth wrapped around his cheek. One of the most beautiful hand-carved sets I have ever seen from southern Germany.
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