Reproduction and Real Jaques of London Chess Set

What happened to Carl's posts?

There was an excellent photo in which it looked like the Queen may have only had 8 points.

I've never seen that in a large club before.

The knight also looked like it may have been carved by the same person who carved my favorite knight.

To me that's the kind of thing I want on this post.

People sharing information and knowledge;

and also giving their honest opinions about what they like and don't like.

Unfortunately, I didn't take a picture of that set before it got removed.

RC would you mind giving your opinion about your favorite knight(s)?

I think as collectors we might be able to help ourselves get knights reproduced that we like.

The one thing I've gathered over the nearly 3-year run of this thread is that there is no ONE style of 1849 Jaques knight. Apparently, Jaques used several carvers who produced a number of slightly different knights all based on a common theme. With each carver probably thinking that his version was better than the rest. After all, who's to say that the few surviving 1849 sets represent all the early variations?

Given all these various styles, the question becomes one of preference. Which style do you prefer?

Personally, the 1849 is not my favorite Staunton design. The most apparent imbalance is the king, which, compared with the remaining pieces, looks like it belongs to a set two sizes larger.

[from the Crumiller collection]

I appreciate the historical value of the set, being the originator of our present de facto standard design, but I'm more interested in the aesthetic value of a set than its historical accuracy -- are the pieces scaled properly, are the knights beautifully rendered, with quality woods and excellent craftsmanship?

My favorite Staunton style set would be a properly scaled set (see below) of my favorite individual Jaques pieces rendered on a common pedestal design, and available in a number of other colors besides ebony and ebonized boxwood.

A rescaled rendition. Pardon my crude Photoshop skills.

loubalch,

You are absolutely correct about there not being ONE style of Jaques Large Club 1849 knight.

There are many.

I'm asking people for their opinions on which style of knight(s) do they like better than the other styles, that's all.

Uthor,

This one is probably my favorite of the 1849 class.

Here is a collection of noble knights. The first is a photo of Selene's horse from the Elgin marbles in the British museum. Some experts theorize that this was the template for the original Jaques knight. If this be the case, then the most accurate reproduction of that knight is Frank Camaratta's knight pictured second (notice the double mane, gaped mouth, and the flared nostrils). Next is my favorite original Jaques knight -- from the 1851-52 ivory set. Better perhaps because carving ivory may have required more experienced craftsmen. And lastly, a very decent Harrwitz knight, which aspires to copy the Selene knight with a simple, more stylized rendering.

loubach,

Thank you.

That was a very informative post.

I really appreciate you participating and giving your honest opinions.

I'm glad you pointed out that Harrwitz knight to me.

I'm going to have to look at those more carefully.

I own such a set. Here are the knights:

 This set is approx. from 1853, so you could argue this represents a Paulsen knight, not a Harrwitz knight. I find this particular knight somewhere in between the two, which kind of shows how arbitrary these attempts are to classify different sets from these early years into the Camaratta codex...

Frank,

Here's a knight from my (one and only) red sandalwood set that is reminiscent of the gaped jawed Harrwitz/Paulsen knight.

Thanks guys.

The mouth on those knights looks more like the horse in the Elgin Marbles.

please ignore my previous post. Those knights are actually from one of my dropjaw sets from around 1860. Should have paid more attention to the photos I was selecting. I'll post the correct ones in a moment.

here we go:

Wow.

I'd have to say those Jaques Knights are the best copy of the Elgin Marbles.

Since we're talking about a lot of different  knights now, I'll post my 3 favorite knights.

UthorPendragon is the hero of this thread!

Just wait till you see my favorite plastic knight!

I was just waiting for it.

you couldn't even rotate the pic??

Oops!

I think I need to go to sleep.