Indian Figural Chess Set, Rajasthan, 20th century

Indian Figural Chess Set, Rajasthan, 20th century

A figural chess set from Rajasthan, India. The pieces are carved from camel bone. The King size is 15 cm. The pieces are typical for traditional Indian chess sets with mounted elephants as kings and queens (vezirs), camels for bishops, horses for knights, smaller elephants for rooks and foot soldiers as pawns. Also traditional, in particular for chess sets from Rajasthan, is the colouring. One side is red, indicated by red bases and feet, the other side green with green bases and feet. The topic roughly follows the "Hindu vs Sikh" topic often seen in Indian sets, as the riders and foot soldiers of the red side are all bearded, which is often used to highlight the Sikh side of the chess sets. As can be seen on the pictures, the pieces are rather massive, especially the kings and queens carved as large mounted elephants with howdah. In order to produce such carvings, it was necessary to join a large number of camel bone plates together to form a solid block, from which the individual sculptures were then made. In view of the high density of camel bones, these pieces therefore have a considerable weight. Sets of this type are very rare and have occasionally been dated to the 19th century, but I think that sets of this type rather date to the first half of the 20th century.
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