Thoughts on Earlier French Playing Chess Sets Designs

Antique French Chess Set Design

Dermot Rochford

I had always considered antique French chess set designs very interesting, the best known of which include the 'Regence',  'Lyon' and ‘Directoire’ the patterns for which were in use from at least the late 18th century / 19th century

 (See images  Reference 'A' and 'B' and ‘C’  below for typical examples of these sets).

Ref. ‘A’ : Regence

Reference ‘B’ : Lyon

Reference ‘C’’ : Directoire

But there are still lots we do not know about these designs such as:

1. Were these designs in use prior to the French Revolution (1789) and if so from what date?
2. What order were these designs come into use and where does the abstract 'Directoire’ (named based on post revolutionary government in 1795) design sets (see Reference 'C' above) fit into the equation and is it correct to use this title for chess sets that may have been in use prior to 1795 as seems to happen currently?
3. Are the knights (with carved horse’s heads) in these sets always taller than the bishops?
4. Are knights with abstract heads (see reference ‘C’ above) also always taller than the bishops?
5. Did these designs evolve from some earlier more abstract chess set pattern eg one with non-figural knights such as that shown in Diderot's Encyclopedie of 1771 - see image Ref 'D' below
6. What if any is the correlation between the playing set forms of knight and bishops compared to the more ornamental full figural sets from the same time period?

Reference ‘D’ : Encyclopedie

I can appreciate that complete answers are not possible on some of the points above, given the lack of surviving early sets and contemporary literature on the subject. So for the purposes of this article, I am confining my thoughts to the question of the apparent universality of the larger knights in French playing sets and the confusion that can occur when trying to differentiate between bishops and knights in French sets with abstract form knights (reference ‘C’ and Reference ‘D’ above).

So I began by reviewing our own antique playing French chess sets on our own site ;

https://www.chessantiquesonline.com/rochford_collection/Euro_Playing_Sets.html 

For a start I soon realized we may have may have given the incorrect titles to some of the French playing sets eg. the use of the  'Directoire' title for some  sets made in the earlier part of the 18thC is questionable, given, that as already mentioned,  the title ‘Directoire’ term  relates to a period of Government in France that only began at the very end of the 18thC (1795). Also in some images of abstract French sets,  (those without figural horses heads as knights)), we may have placed the bishops and knights in the wrong order in our images by adhering to the descending height order in displaying the pieces.  We may be biased based on our experience with antique English Staunton playing sets. So why is the knight (portrayed by a horse’s head)  usually taller than the bishop in French sets and how universal is this feature?  Of course, this design feature is not confined to chess sets made in France but it does appear to be much more pronounced and widespread  in French chess sets. I looked at  our own Regence sets with horse’s heads , and invariably the knights in these sets are a lot taller than the bishops, the set in Reference ‘A' above being a representative example .
So then the question arises as to whether this is a general principle, let us call it ‘Taller Knights Principle’ or 'TKnP' for ease of use, that applies to all or most antique French playing chess sets? When examining   'Lyon' sets with horse’s heads (Reference ‘B’ above), these sets have  similar format to Regence sets but with added bone frills/trimmings, it shows the same ‘TKnP’ at work.
While I'm sure there are exceptions to the rule, it is striking how universal ‘TKnP’ appears to be in French playing sets that have horses heads as knights.
Then the next question to address is does this principle apply also in the more abstract French sets (i.e those that do not have horses heads as knights) and here I'm thinking mainly of the 'Directoire' type sets. Without a distinctive horse’s head to guide one, differentiating between a bishop and a knight in these sets can be a lot more difficult. Often in these sets, imaged in collector books and catalogs, the pieces are arranged in descending order of height from King to Pawn and as such the Bishop is usually  shown as being taller than the knight (not following the ‘TKnP’).

As examples of these display formats, I have included the image below (Reference ‘E’ ) of a ‘Directoire’ type set from page 38 of Gareth Williams book (Master Pieces) showing this descending  order of pieces and Ref ‘C’ above from our own collection, also shows the same descending order of height of chess pieces.

In both sets it can be seen that the piece in the bishop position is taller than the piece in the knight position and therefore on the face of it, these images appear to rebut the proposition that in  antique French playing sets, the knight is taller than the bishop. However, as most collectors now accept, the order of the bishop and knights in these examples has been shown incorrectly - this has come about partly based on the work done by fellow CCI member Patrice Plain in specifying the distinctive features of the tops of the abstract knights and bishops, as shown in the image ‘F’ below;

Reference ‘F’ : Patrice Plain

From this diagram it can be seen that the bishop characteristics shows that the top can be a cutaway or have slots/teeth, while the knight has a triangular type top. Examining both sets in Reference  'C' and ‘D’ above, shows that the pieces in the knight positions have the side cuts and slots and are in fact bishops.  Correcting this line up means that the knight in these sets are in fact taller than the bishop and therefore follows the general ‘TKnP’.

Also, having looked through specialist chess auction catalogs spanning the last 30 years and seeing dozens of examples of Regence and Lyon sets, and all  the knights are taller than the bishops. For Directoire form sets, the pieces in these catalogs are almost always lined up (incorrectly) in descending order from tallest to smallest.

So I think it reasonable to conclude that this ‘TKnP’ does indeed apply, almost universally,to late 18th century / early 19th century French playing sets.

Establishing if the ‘TKnP’ also applies in earlier French sets is of course more problematic given the scarcity of surviving sets from the earlier part of the 18th century but we have a dated French set of 1765 (which featured in Jim Joannou's article in the last edition of the CCI Magazine - Spring 2023), and it has ‘Dragoon’ helmeted knights which are taller than the bishops - see image ‘G’ below.

Reference ‘G’ : Dragoon

A further example of an early set (possibly from the 1760's) with bishops having triangular type tops, belongs to fellow collector Andreas Wittischek- see image ‘H’ below

These examples show that this ‘TKnP’ in chess sets predates the publication of Diderot's Encyclopedie in 1771. It also proves that a bishop could be represented by a triangle type top in these sets - this is an important point as it demonstrates that in early French sets it is not just the knights that can be represented with a triangle-type top.

Finally, there is a  related question: when did the horse head become the dominant representation for the knight in French chess sets? It seems that up to the mid 18th century, the standard head-gear of the French cavalry was a tricorn hat and this was reflected in  chess sets by the knight piece having a tricorn or triangular type top. But in 1762 the French cavalry Dragoons regiments were issued with the new metal combat helmet, featuring a tall crest, which was based on the classical Greek/Roman styles. This may have heralded the end of the tricorn chess knights and the gradual replacement with ‘Dragoon’ helmeted tops. These in turn were then superseded by horse’s head representation of the knight which then became the norm in the 19th century. It seems only a small minority of French sets (given their scarcity nowadays) adopted the newly introduced ‘Dragoon’ helmet design for the knight representation and the dated set, shown in Reference 'G' above,  may have been one of the very first chess sets to have incorporated the 'Dragoon' knight in its design.

Conclusion

In my opinion both horse head knights and abstract knight pieces in antique 18th century French playing sets, with very few exceptions, were always taller than bishop pieces associated with them.

The reason for this is something that needs research, hopefully more material will become available to help with this subject over time.

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