- Elephant King -
I've always been partial to elephant figures, on or off the chessboard. I purchased this Sandalwood Elephant from eBay not knowing it was a chess piece until it arrived. It appears to come from a twentieth century Rajasthan Indian set in the Maharajah style. I have seen quite a few sets like this and imagine the piece signatures in this one resemble my other Maharajah sets. This king is made from sandalwood and stands 5.75". I believe the tusks are bone or ivory, but they may be some kind of plastic that 'fools' a black light. My pictures don't show it, but there are three riders under the canopy. The front most rider is carved from the same piece as the elephant. The back two are carved separately and glued on. The turrets at the top of the piece are also glued on. They look as if they may have been turned. On some sets these are ivory like the tusks, that explains the extra pieces in the design. The rest of the figure appears, amazingly enough, to have been carved from one solid piece of sandalwood, base, elephant, canopy, and everything! Quite impressive. Black pieces may have be ebony, or only painted at the base.
