Chess set - Schaakspel - Suar wood

Balinese (Indonesian) carved wooden chess and backgammon board with an accompanying table. Self bought in Bali, at least 30 years old.

Complete and undamaged.

The inside of the fold-out top is a complete backgammon board, with inlaid points in two kinds of wood and a central bar. There is also a pouch with dice. Moreover, the four legs are detachable and can be stored in the board — the whole folds shut into a case with a carved handle and latch hooks.

The construction is very good. The playing surface isn’t a glued-on chess pattern but inlaid work with solid squares in light and dark wood, with a fine mitre around. The edge decoration runs through all sides, including the underside of the edges, and the carving on the legs is done on both faces. Souvenir work is rough on the invisible sides; that is not the case here.

The pieces are individually carved. In the close-up you can see that the red figures differ from one another — the king, the knight with horse, the bishops and the pawns each have their own shape, and even within the pawns there are small variations. That points to hand craftsmanship piece by piece, not to a mold or mechanical pre-processing.