Description:
Chinese export chess set with 28 carved ivory Chinese men and 4 pagodas in red and white in a hinged game box lined with silk and insets to hold the pieces. This set was typical of the thousands of chess sets exported from China, which remained a popular, if expensive, souvenir from the China trade throughout the 19th century. Given the amount of carving required and rarity of the materials, ivory chess sets were a luxury. According to Osmond Tiffany's "The Canton Chinese": "A set which brings twenty or thirty dollars in the United States, may be obtained in China for eight or ten." Like this example, the pieces were often in red and white; light damage has considerably faded the red stain on some of these pieces. These chess figures are clothed in traditional Chinese dress, some in the position and attitude of attack, and others standing in defensive postures. The castles take the form of Chinese pagodas; no other architectural form represented the exotic East like the pagoda. Although traditionally regarded by Westerners as a symbol of China, the pagoda form was derived from the stupa - an Indian Buddhist shrine known as a Dagoba, or Dhagoba, meaning "relic preserver." The Chinese often erected pagodas in commemoration of unusual acts of devotion, as good omens, to improve the feng shui (literally wind and water) of the area, or merely as observational towers. Visitors and seamen to China saw several pagodas along the Pearl River: two at Whampoa Anchorage: the Lotus (Lianhua) pagoda and the Whampoa (Huangpu) Pagoda, and the Flowery Pagoda in Canton. The game of chess had developed by the 6th century, but its origins are unclear. Most scholars agree that the precursor of modern chess originated in India as 'chaturanga', a military-style strategy game played with four people. Another theory regards China as the true birthplace of chess; 'Xiangqi', or Chinese chess, has similar rules, board configuration, piece movements, strategies, etc.
Tags:
games; pagodas Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+58.070 |
