Description: Bauhaus chess game. Designed 1924, executed by the Bauhaus Dessau after 1926. Wood, partly black stained, brass clasp. 6.1 x 13.6 x 13.4 cm. In the lid with Embossing stamp: HARTWIG BAUHAUS DESSAU GES. GESCH. On the underside handwritten in pencil 11/50. This model is the model XVI, which is even more reduced in the design of the figures than the previous models. In the years 1921-25 the sculptor Josef Hartwig was the foreman of the wood and stone sculptures at the Bauhaus. Already since 1922, he dealt with the contemporary redesign of the more than a thousand-year-old strategy game, which had developed in his opinion in the last two hundred years from the 'imitation of the struggle between two armies' to a 'purely abstract intellectual game'. In the abstract geometric design of his pieces, the gait and value of the individual figures is logically reproduced. With this redesign Hartwig managed one of the biggest commercial successes of the Bauhaus.
Artist or Maker: Josef Hartwig
Date: Design 1924
Condition Report: Condition Report available on request
Literature: Bauhaus-Archiv, Das Bauhaus-Schachspiel von Josef Hartwig, Berlin 2006, Abb. S. 19, 35.
Notes: Bauhaus Dessau