Chessmen (32)

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The red king is Napoleon, his queen Josephine. The red bishops are soldiers in tricornes. The red knights are French hussars, and the rooks are figures personifying Victory, holding victor's wreaths, on high columns. The pawns are French guardsmen. The green king is possibly Francis I of Austria, and the queen may be his wife, but she resembles Catherine the Great of Russia; her appearance here may be an anachronistic attempt to symbolize the presence of Russia as an ally of Austria at the Battle of Austerlitz. The knights are similar to Polish lancers; the rooks castles, the pawns Prussian infantry. The figures are finely carved, and there is more animation and sculptural quality in the queens and bishops than is customarily seen in chess sculpture.

European Sculpture and Decorative Arts

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The fifty thousand objects in the Museum's comprehensive and historically important collection of European sculpture and decorative arts reflect the development of a number of art forms in Western European countries from the early fifteenth through the early twentieth century. The holdings include sculpture in many sizes and media, woodwork and furniture, ceramics and glass, metalwork and jewelry, horological and mathematical instruments, and tapestries and textiles. Ceramics made in Asia for export to European markets and sculpture and decorative arts produced in Latin America during this period are also included among these works.

Metropolitan Museum of Art