A chess king need not wear a crown to be recognisable. In a twelfth-century set at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, a throne stands for the ruler. The nearly complete set, attributed to Nishapur in Iran, offers a small-scale introduction to abstraction in Islamic material culture.
Read the shapes
The museum’s object record explains the visual code: the king is a throne and the vizier a smaller throne. Two projections identify the elephant, corresponding to the bishop; a triangular head marks the horse, or knight. The chariot, equivalent to the rook, has a rectangular body with a wedge above it. Knobbed, faceted hemispheres serve as pawns.
Compare repeated outlines before looking for faces. The image shows how a few distinctive features can distinguish pieces without turning each one into a miniature figure.
An object, not a modern replica
The pieces are molded and glazed stonepaste. The Met dates the set to the twelfth century and describes its location as an attribution, rather than a certainty. Its accession number is 1971.193a–ff; the collection credit is Pfeiffer Fund, 1971.
Image: The Metropolitan Museum of Art; maker unidentified. Public-domain museum image, available under the Met’s CC0 Open Access policy.
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