One of my rarest and most valuable chess sets, a so-called ‘Bears of Berne’ chess set from Switzerland, which was made at the end of the 19th century. The pieces with a king size of 10 cm are carved from fruitwood, one side natural, the other side coloured dark brown. The kings wearing a crown and holding a sword. The queens wearing a crown and holding a club. The rooks as turrets surmounted with small bears, the knights as bears on all four paws, the bishops as bears holding spears and the pawns as bears armed with rifles.

 
The bear is the heraldic animal of the Swiss capital Bern. Carved bear figures have long been a speciality of the carvers in the small village of Brienz on the north-eastern shore of Lake Brienz in the Bernese Oberland, around 60 km from Bern as the crow flies. Chess sets with a bear motif were already being made there in the 19th century and were mainly sold to foreign tourists who were spending their summer holidays in the Swiss mountains. Bears of Berne sets were carved almost exclusively from wood. However, a few sets are also known to have been made of ivory. It is not entirely clear whether these sets can also be attributed to the carvers in Brienz. However, there was also a shop in Interlaken, on the western shore of Lake Brienz, which specialised in the trade in ivory artefacts. It is possible that the ivory sets were made and traded there on behalf of the merchant in question.