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Chess sets that belonged to famous chess players

Chess sets that belonged to famous grandmasters before they made their way into museums

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Mikhail Chigorin’s Regence Chess Set

The Regence Chess Set, which was Chigorin’s favorite, is inspired by the romantic 19th century. Similar chess pieces were used at the famous Parisian cafe Regence, in particular in the 1843 match between Europe’s top chess players, Staunton and Saint Amant.

Alekhine's chess set

Russia’s first World Champion, Alexander Alekhine, gifted this chess set to a good friend before leaving Soviet Russia.

Shatranj

In 1976, the famous grandmaster and rarity enthusiast David Bronstein returned home with a unique trophy: an unusual chess set in a box inlaid with mother of pearl. The pieces are so abstract that none can be identified without hints. All were made using the technique of medieval Persian chess — shatranj, as they called the game in the Arab East. Since Islam forbade the depiction of human figures and animals, we can only guess their identities: a symbolic elongated horse muzzle on the second piece from the edge; slightly protruding elephant tusks on the next piece. The king is depicted as the royal throne, while the queen (“vizier” or “prime minister” in the East) is also a throne but a less lavish one. The edge piece is a mysterious creature, the Roc, a mighty and formidable mythic bird. Europeans later saw the silhouette of a fortress wall merlon (the rook) in its shape. The heyday of shatranj in the East began in the 10th–11th centuries, when the first recognized masters, like Al-Suli, made history. The celebrated poet Omar Khayyam (1048–1131) even described life through chess: 'Tis all a Chequer-board of Nights and Days Where Destiny with Men for Pieces plays: Hither and thither moves, and mates, and slays, And one by one back in the Closet lays.

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"Chess suitcase" of Alexandra Kosteniuk

This chess set belonged to Alexandra Kosteniuk when she was a kid, long before she became a Women's World Chess Champion. The dedication on the board reads: "To Sashenka - the future world chess champion!!! From Uncle Vasya."

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