With the exciting news that 12-year-old Mississauga resident Aaron Reeve Mendes has become the first Canadian to win an international master chess title, we pause for this month’s RBC Art Pick to celebrate the art of the game.  

Chess was likely developed around 500 CE in India, making it one of the oldest board games in the world. It spread across Asia and Europe during the Middle Ages, and its pieces have taken many forms over time and in different cultures. Medieval European chess pieces, such as these magnificent examples from the AGO’s Thomson Collection of European Art, were crafted from precious materials like walrus ivory sourced from northern Europe, or elephant ivory from southern Africa. The game, as played during the early Middle Ages, was slow, and could stretch for days. Throughout the Middle Ages, it was popular with nobility, a game of skill that espoused courtly values and that led to the commissioning of elaborately embellished game sets.

In chess, the king is the most important piece on the board, and each chess set has 32 playing pieces, each board 64 squares. The protection of one’s king is fundamental to winning the game.  This defensive anxiety is evident in this Romanesque chess piece dating from the early 12th century. Here, the figure of the king is enthroned, seated under a rounded arch supported by sculpted eagles with wings outstretched. Tucked away behind the columns, are two soldiers, swords drawn, guarding from lateral attack. From under his cloak, he holds objects of regal authority in both hands. 

Side view: German (Cologne). Chess Piece: King, end of 12th century. Ivory, Overall: 7.6 x 5.2 x 3.2 cm. The Thomson Collection at the Art Gallery of Ontario. AGOID.29121

Dating from the late 14th century, Chess Piece: Queen affirms the place of chess in courtly life, a game played by both men and women.

French (Northern). Chess Piece: Queen, late 14th century-early 15th century. Ivory, Overall: 6 x 4.5 x 2.8 cm. The Thomson Collection at the Art Gallery of Ontario.  AGOID.29123

 Seated on her throne, dressed in a robe of cascading folds and displaying the two-braided hairstyle popular in the late Middle Ages, the Queen holds in one hand a sceptre, and in her other, a squirrel with a nut in its mouth. The squirrel, a popular pet throughout the Middle Ages for the nobility, may suggest chess being viewed as a teasing, flirtatious battle of wits.  

It is comforting to know, that today, in an era when computers can play chess without us, the artful crafting of chess pieces lives on. In 1944, Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, and the Julian Levy Gallery invited prominent Modern artists to reimagine the game of chess for the exhibition, The Imagery of Chess. That tradition was continued by the art studio RS&A in the 2000s with the commissioning of sets by leading contemporary artists, among them Damien Hirst, Yayoi Kusama and Rachel Whiteread.   

In the book, Masterworks: Rare and Beautiful Chess Sets of the World, Dylan Loeb McClain writes, “How [chess] is presented and interpreted is always a reflection of the times . . . Chess is also shaped and influenced by cultural and even linguistic differences. The game is universal, but how it is adopted and adapted is not . . . This is why over the centuries, famous artists and designers and nameless artisans who have made chess sets have not done so as an exercise in conformity but as an opportunity for self-expression and to convey ideas...” 

Chess Piece: King and Chess Piece: Queen are currently on view on Level 1, as part of the AGO’s Thomson European Collection. Your move.