Thomas Chislett - Alice - Through the Looking Glass, 1980s

An absolutely outstanding hand made pewter chess set made in Folkestone, England, by Thomas Chislett. Kings just 2" tall, but Chislett has packed in the details to this diminuitive set, including the bite out of the March Hare's sandwich, and the tea in his cup.

The figures are physical representations of John Tenniel's wonderful illustrations for the Lewis Carroll book "Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There", a novel published in 1871 as a sequel to "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" (1865).  The theme of the book, appropriately, is chess.

It is interesting to note that Tenniel based his chess king and queen not on the Staunton set, but on a ribbed bone set (sometimes mistakenly called "barleycorn", though not a true barleycorn).  This would imply that children would still have been familiar with this more traditional form of chess piece in 1871 (see photo comparison of the king and queen with an original ribbed set), though of course it may be the image of a chess set which was most front of mind to Tenniel, who was born in 1820, thirty years before the Staunton pattern arrived on the scene.

I have to say, this is by far the best "Alice" set I have ever seen - owing to the skill of Thomas Chislett in recreating Tenniel's vision into three dimensions.  It is also, to date, the only example of this set that I know of.

John Tenniel was an English illustrator, and graphic humourist and was the principal political cartoonist for Punch magazine for over 50 years - and the first such professional to be knighted (in 1893).  His illustrations are the definitive depiction of Carroll's Alice books, and are really rather special.

Tenniel's depiction of the White Knight in the book is fascinating and well known to be based on Albrecht Durer's famous engraving "Knight, Death, and the Devil" and contains some deeper satirical commentary from Tenniel on the Victorian Gothic Revival of the time (see "Alice and the White Knight: John Tenniel's Satire of the Victorian Idea of the Medieval", Jason K Burnett).  The White Knight was also, as you will be able to discern from the photographs, modelled on Tenniel himself, resplendent with a magnificient moustache.  And, yes, the White Knight is my favourite in the set.