Marble and Alabaster Chess Sets

•Different Types of Stone Chess Sets
Stone is a powerful and ancient material that is born deep beneath the earth, and is formed over millions of years. This makes it an excellent candidate when choosing a material with which to form a chess set. Chess is a game of strategy, battle, and conflict, and so playing with stone pieces lends a certain power to the symbolic nature of the set. However, there are a wide variety of different types of stone, each with its own look, feel, and style. Marble is probably the most iconic...

•Chess Decorative power Through Challenge
A chess set is a challenge. Its very existence provides for a battle of wits that can actually have a defined winner, and a defined loser. It is a call to arms for anyone who enters a space. As such, it has a certain power that other pieces may lack. It is a force in a room, an immediate attention grabbing piece that elevates the style and sophistication of a space. When someone walks into a room, their eyes will be riveted towards a chess set. It demands attention. As such it’s important...

•Decorating With Chess Sets
Chess is an ancient game of strategy and power. It is based on geometrical and mathematical purities, making it one of the most elegant games ever conceived of. And yet, it is a contest, and as with any conflict the battle rages back and forth as two opponents struggle for dominance. This combination of purity, and dynamic tension, mixed with a rich and varied history, makes chess sets a powerful symbolic piece in any decorative setting. It is important to select an appropriate environment...

•The People Who Own Decorative Chess Sets
Lots of people own a chess set. It’s often made up of plastic or wooden pieces, stretched across some folding board, tucked away in a box in the closet; if the issue ever comes up, its there, waiting to be pulled out. But it’s not displayed; it’s not set out there, a challenge, beckoning to potential players to take up the gauntlet of battle. That’s what a decorative chess set really is. It’s a call to arms, a challenge to anyone that enters. In a game of wits, the relative intelligence of...

•The Decorative Value of Chess Sets
Chess is an ancient game of competition that pits the minds of two opponents against one another in a contest of skill and strategy designed to measure the cognitive complexity of your opponent. It is a powerful symbol of strength and competitive cunning, and can have a dramatic impact on the nature of a space. Understanding the decorative role of chess sets, can allow you to use it as an important piece in the atmosphere of a room. The first thing you should notice is the contrasted colors...

•The Modernization of Chess
Chess has not always looked like it does today. Over time the pieces and the rules have changed drastically. The modern game did not even emerge until the 1400’s at least a millennium after it had been invented. Chess is believed to have been invented in India, sometime before 500 AD. It quickly spread to Persia where it was called Shatranj, a Persian version of a Sanscrit word. It was adopted by the Muslims who retained the Persian name when they invaded. By 700 AD a version of the game...

•Chess a Game of Warriors a Game of Nobility
The nature of chess is in its very essence no more than a game. A contest set between two opponents, each equally matched in everything except mental skill and experience. It is a game of equals, as much as it is a game of nobles. It is a contest that anyone can win, but only a few can master. It is a test that is almost as ancient as civilization itself, and yet its simplicity is unmatched, and its brilliance unrivalled. The game of chess is a mental sport. As such it has generally been...

•Early Chess Tournaments From Anderssen to Zukertort
The birth of competitive chess happened in London in 1851 with what many consider to be the world’s first modern chess tournament. At the time chess had been rising in popularity in Europe steadily for over 400 years. People had started to think philosophically and strategically about the game, and to analyze it using mathematical formulas. Chess manuals were being published, and chess problems were a regular part of many newspapers weekly additions. The tournament in London was the...

•Onyx Decorating Care Maintenance and Information About the Stone
In decorating terms Onyx is a semi precious material, a form of marble that can take a high polish, featuring unique swirls of pattern and color which dance across its smooth face. One property that gives onyx a truly unique personality is that it has a translucent property, allowing light to actually pass through the stone and come out on the other side. Onyx Stone is primarily quarried in two places, the Himalayan Mountains, and certain regions of Mexico. The Mexican material tends to be...

•Taking Care of Marble Accessories
Marble is an ancient and vaunted material that has been used in art and architecture for thousands of years. It is prized for its many elegant properties, the most obvious of which is the extremely high polish that it can take. This allows the stone to be worked to a point where it can actually glimmer and glint in the light of the morning sun. Marble also comes in a variety of color options that makes it quite desirable in many artistic applications. You have some pieces which are wildly...