Chess Piece with King or Vizier (DO BZ.1966.7)
This ivory chess piece suggests the luxury arts of tenth- and eleventh-century Córdoba, one of the great cities of Islamic Spain, and the cross-cultural nature of chess as a pastime. Córdoba was then the cultural hub of the Muslim-ruled caliphate of the Iberian Peninsula, or al-Andalus. The peninsula had been conquered by an offshoot of the Islamic dynasty of the Ummayads in the eighth century, and the region maintained close contact with merchants and goods from the eastern Mediterranean and North Africa. Islamic Spain embraced the styles and traditions of the Islamic Near East in a location proximate to western Europe.
The game now known as chess is believed to have originated in India and traveled through western Asia in the sixth and seventh centuries. Moving across the Islamic eastern Mediterranean and North Africa, chess is believed to have reached the Latin West by the eleventh century. With its royal figurines and elaborate rules, chess was associated with opulence. The game and its pieces reflected the social hierarchies of the medieval world and therefore shifted and evolved with local social structures so players could see their own world reflected in the game. When the Islamic version of chess reached Christian western Europe, the pieces were modified: the elephant became the bishop or judge, the horse became a knight, and the vizier, possibly depicted in this piece, became the queen. In this game piece, the male figure, a king or vizier, is seated on a throne with intricate detailing that includes a rabbit and deer on the sides and a falconer on the back.
Ivory was often scarce during some medieval periods, although changing trade routes between Europe and North and sub-Saharan Africa made it more abundant at other times (see Guérin, “Oliphants and Elephants,” above). It always retained its status as a luxury material. Moreover, ivory was doubly valuable in a gaming piece because of its visual qualities, including its pale color with natural variation, and its tactile ones, particularly its durable smoothness.
Suggested Reading:
Adams, Jenny. “Introduction: Chess in the Medieval World.” In Power Play: The Literature and
Politics of Chess in the Late Middle Ages, 1–14. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006.
Freeman Fahid, Deborah. Chess and Other Games Pieces from Islamic Lands; The al-Sabah
Collection, Kuwait. London: Thames & Hudson, 2018.
Guérin, Sarah M. “Avorio d’ogni ragione: The Supply of Elephant Ivory to Northern Europe in the Gothic Era.” Journal of Medieval History 36 (2010): 156–74.
Holod, Renata. “Luxury Arts of the Caliphal Period.” In Al-Andalus: The Art of Islamic Spain,
edited by Jerrilynn D. Dodds, 41–47. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1992.