thank you for your advice!
In Larry List’s “The Imagery Of Chess Revisited”, p. 40, in the chapter Max Ernst, we find the sentence: “The Chess Queen reached the zenith of her fourteen-century rise in the wood chess set Ernst created in the summer of 1944. For the first time in a chess set of any prominence, the figure of the Queen was made decidedly taller than the King.”
There is of course a design problem by putting a sphere on the cube: A sphere which only has the diameter of a pawn looks almost ridiculously lost, and every sphere bigger than that makes the Queen higher than the King.
Hartwig’s solution seems to be a “medium” sphere partly immersed in the cube. In my opinion the workmen who made the Queens had perhaps no exact given measurements of the diameter, or they did not exactly follow Hartwig’s drawings.
Mike Darlow shows pictures of a set which belonged to Gropius himself, where the sphere on the Queen is even not an exact sphere (“Turned Chessmen”, 2004, Fig. 1.67).
Hartwig must have accepted that. What he would have thought of the Replica-Queens with bigger spheres towering above his King we will never know.
For myself I have now decided to use the dimensions in the attached drawing, the sides of the cube being 30 mm long.
jvreij
Dear Helfried
I think it is a good idea to make the King and Queen equal size. But don’t put the sphere too deep into the cube.
Further you must know that Hartwig designed the King at 5.0 cm. All other dimensions are derived from that (some math gives 2.93 and 2.07 for cubes of King).
Hartwig did not tell the size of the Queen unfortunately, but he says cubes of all pieces are of equal size, except pawn which is size of cube on top of King.
On the internet you can see pictures of original sets to see.
However, you may also see the prospectus in the book of the Bauhaus Archiv (sorry about unsharpness upper-left):
Helfried
Dear Museum,
I want to make a copy of Josef Hartwirg’s Bauhaus Chessmen in the (final?) version of 1924. Now I am unsure about the measurements of the Queen, because in your set made by Kahe Pasch the Queen is much higher than the King, “exactly according to the original”.
In the pictures of version 16 King and Queen seem to be equal in height, Wichmann (p.326) gives the heights of King and Queen in the set in New York’s Museum of Modern Art with 4,71 centimeters each.
Larry List, The Imagery Of Chess Revisited, Page 57: “The Queen is crowned with a truncated sphere derived from a Pawn-sized cube, making her ever-so-lightly shorter than the King”.
Can you help me understanding these discrepancies? Is there a Hartwig-Version newer than Number 16?
Well, NAEF does produce Queens with very big spheres – but perhaps this is not entirely correct – they would not fit neatly into the original box, I think.
Helfried
jvreij
Hello Helfried
Thank you very much for bringing it up.
The Bauhaus Archiv booklet about the sets, describes it as the final version.
But all 4 types were considered by Jozef Hartwig as valid.
That booklet shows the prospectus where it looks that the queen has a big sphere.
However, in original sets in carton box of 1924 do the sets have a smaller sphere indeed.
There are several manufacturers now who make affordable replicas with smaller spheres.
Note that the original set was made in different sizes, material and finish. Different boxes too.
So I have to adapt my “exactly according the original”, because it is not possible/defined.
Josh
Here is an earlier example of the Mexican Pulpit. It has significantly more detail and would be far more time consuming to make. The vertical cut slats are cut all the way through the bone. Based on the progression of the design, from the slow and limited production sets like this one, to the high volume tourist sue veneers of the 1970’s, I suspect mine to date to the late 19th century. Dermot Rochford had a similarly detailed version in his collection which he dated the same. His set had some different design details, which one would expect from sets that were individually crafted as art, rather than more mass produced striving to be identical.
Josh
I think this picture might help date Mexican Pulpit sets. It’s a studio still picture from the 1949 Bogart film “Knock on Any Door.” It seems likely the set was fairly available in Hollywood at the time. So a date of the 1940’s for that version seems reasonable.
jvreij
Hello Josh
Thank you very much for this picture, which is proving that the sets were made way earlier then I thought!
In fact they have been made during quite some time and I wonder if they are sill being made today?
Dear Museum,
thank you for your advice!
In Larry List’s “The Imagery Of Chess Revisited”, p. 40, in the chapter Max Ernst, we find the sentence: “The Chess Queen reached the zenith of her fourteen-century rise in the wood chess set Ernst created in the summer of 1944. For the first time in a chess set of any prominence, the figure of the Queen was made decidedly taller than the King.”
There is of course a design problem by putting a sphere on the cube: A sphere which only has the diameter of a pawn looks almost ridiculously lost, and every sphere bigger than that makes the Queen higher than the King.
Hartwig’s solution seems to be a “medium” sphere partly immersed in the cube. In my opinion the workmen who made the Queens had perhaps no exact given measurements of the diameter, or they did not exactly follow Hartwig’s drawings.
Mike Darlow shows pictures of a set which belonged to Gropius himself, where the sphere on the Queen is even not an exact sphere (“Turned Chessmen”, 2004, Fig. 1.67).
Hartwig must have accepted that. What he would have thought of the Replica-Queens with bigger spheres towering above his King we will never know.
For myself I have now decided to use the dimensions in the attached drawing, the sides of the cube being 30 mm long.
Dear Helfried
I think it is a good idea to make the King and Queen equal size. But don’t put the sphere too deep into the cube.
Further you must know that Hartwig designed the King at 5.0 cm. All other dimensions are derived from that (some math gives 2.93 and 2.07 for cubes of King).
Hartwig did not tell the size of the Queen unfortunately, but he says cubes of all pieces are of equal size, except pawn which is size of cube on top of King.
On the internet you can see pictures of original sets to see.
However, you may also see the prospectus in the book of the Bauhaus Archiv (sorry about unsharpness upper-left):
Dear Museum,
I want to make a copy of Josef Hartwirg’s Bauhaus Chessmen in the (final?) version of 1924. Now I am unsure about the measurements of the Queen, because in your set made by Kahe Pasch the Queen is much higher than the King, “exactly according to the original”.
In the pictures of version 16 King and Queen seem to be equal in height, Wichmann (p.326) gives the heights of King and Queen in the set in New York’s Museum of Modern Art with 4,71 centimeters each.
Larry List, The Imagery Of Chess Revisited, Page 57: “The Queen is crowned with a truncated sphere derived from a Pawn-sized cube, making her ever-so-lightly shorter than the King”.
Can you help me understanding these discrepancies? Is there a Hartwig-Version newer than Number 16?
Well, NAEF does produce Queens with very big spheres – but perhaps this is not entirely correct – they would not fit neatly into the original box, I think.
Helfried
Hello Helfried
Thank you very much for bringing it up.
The Bauhaus Archiv booklet about the sets, describes it as the final version.
But all 4 types were considered by Jozef Hartwig as valid.
That booklet shows the prospectus where it looks that the queen has a big sphere.
However, in original sets in carton box of 1924 do the sets have a smaller sphere indeed.
There are several manufacturers now who make affordable replicas with smaller spheres.
Note that the original set was made in different sizes, material and finish. Different boxes too.
So I have to adapt my “exactly according the original”, because it is not possible/defined.
Here is an earlier example of the Mexican Pulpit. It has significantly more detail and would be far more time consuming to make. The vertical cut slats are cut all the way through the bone. Based on the progression of the design, from the slow and limited production sets like this one, to the high volume tourist sue veneers of the 1970’s, I suspect mine to date to the late 19th century. Dermot Rochford had a similarly detailed version in his collection which he dated the same. His set had some different design details, which one would expect from sets that were individually crafted as art, rather than more mass produced striving to be identical.
I think this picture might help date Mexican Pulpit sets. It’s a studio still picture from the 1949 Bogart film “Knock on Any Door.” It seems likely the set was fairly available in Hollywood at the time. So a date of the 1940’s for that version seems reasonable.
Hello Josh
Thank you very much for this picture, which is proving that the sets were made way earlier then I thought!
In fact they have been made during quite some time and I wonder if they are sill being made today?
I will add the new insights to my website page.