- Le Fou -
I acquired a large lot of mixed bone, ivory, and plastic pieces a while back with the intention of casting copies of them. I had a lot of trouble with the copies and haven't finished any sets. I don't feel many of them are worth posting here as singletons or incomplete pieces, but I've posted a single Elephant King and some presentation examples of Lewis pieces which are not a complete set, so why not a single French bishop?
When I first acquired this piece I imagined the finial was missing, but the break was oddly clean and the remaining piece is monoblock. If it had another piece it was probably a knight head. French knights don't usually have discs like this, though. However, after looking at very early Regence sets with non-figural knights, I believe this piece to be a bishop, and I believe it is complete, not missing it's top. It's difficult to come by even a picture of such early French sets but Jon Crumiller has a picture of some turning diagrams on his site. It's difficult to see in the small pictures, but just notice the bishop (third piece from the left; order of height KQNBRP is a time honored way to arrange French chess pieces for diagrams and photographs, yes it makes them even more confusing) does not have the orb finial you see in Modern Regence sets, but only a nub above the disc, like my this piece of mine. For this reason I think the piece might be quite old. How old? Well I have no idea. Please email me if you have an idea.
The French bishop is not a clergyman or elephant, but a fool, a court jester, 'le fou.' Another reason for my posting just this piece is my love of the character of the fool. Some French fools are beautifully carved and make excellent stand-alone pieces. Kristja... I mean... the anonymous chess collector has a particularly fine one. This piece of mine has only the simple elegant turning of the Regency style, but I associate it with the character of the fool nonetheless.
The third reason I chose to post just this one piece is as an example of ivory. My only ivory set is oddly carved an unpolished. It shows sharp Lines of Owen down the middle of the white pieces but the Schreger lines are almost invisible. I thought it was bone until an expert told me otherwise. That set does'nt look much like ivory. This highly polished Fou, on the other hand, screams it's made of elephant ivory. This is what ivory looks like! Note the cross-hatching, interlocking circular pattern in the grain. These are Schreger lines and you will only see them in elephant ivory. They probably won't jump out and smack you in the face on most pieces; this is an extreme example, but it shows what to look for. If you're trying to verify elephant ivory, look at the piece in sunlight and look for this Schreger pattern.
Ivory fool.