Austrian Coffeehouse Chess Set in the Biedermeier style, made from boxwood, one side ebonised, the other left natural. King size is 82 mm (3.2"). Kings with double galleries. Queens with single galleries. Knights as horses' heads, the rooks as turrets with alternate coloured ball finials. The bishops with rigged feathers in opposite colour. In some sets the shape of the cross section of the caps is more pronounced and described as a lyre shape, an element which is known from very early German Selenus sets dating back to the 17th and 18th century (Thomas H. Thomsen, The Chessmen used in the Vienna Coffee Houses, Program of the 8th CCI Congress in Vienna, 19-24 May 1998). Personally, however, I am of the opinion that the bishops' finials in sets like these probably show a high hat with a feather rather than a lyre. This was by no means unknown, as shown, for example, by a set of Selenus figures, presumably cast in iron in Berlin at the beginning of the 19th century, which also shows the bust of a man with a high hat as a bishop (Hans & Barbara Holländer, Schachpartie durch Zeiten und Welten, p. 224, 228, picture 202). In fact, the high hats with feathers are reminiscent of officer's hats of the military of the time, as contemporary depictions show, possibly even a grenadier cap, as such has a form comparable to a mitre with a feather sticking out.