Chessmen - Art and History, Mathieu & Ine Kloprogge, 376 p.
A voluminous book, published by Gopher/Amsterdam in 2007, with lots and lots of wonderful b/w and coloured pictures of very impressive chess pieces and a good overview over the art and history of chessmen. The book is divided into chapters, each of which represents a certain century, starting with the 16th century all the way to the 20th century. The chapters itself are subdivided by provenance. Some of the details are not entirely correct according to today's standard of knowledge, but the entire design and setup of the book are great and make it a very useful guide and a fantastic reading experience.
The book comes with a CD which in addition to the pictures shown in the book contains high resolution pictures of antique chess sets.
The authors Mathieu and Ine Kloprogge accumulated one of the most impressive chess collections in Europe. However, they decided to dissolve their collection and sold all chess sets in 2014, the majority of which was part of the 66th auction of German auctioneer Klittich-Pfankuch.
Thanks to the help of a fellow chess collector and friend of Mathieu and Ine Kloprogge, I managed to get a signed copy of the book together with a personal dedication.