Chess Players Stained Glass, prov. the Hôtel de la Bessée at Villefranche-sur-Saône

The Chess Players
Villefranche-sur-Saône, hôtel
de la Bessée, 1430-1440
Stained glass
Cl. 23422

The game of chess as a metaphor for the ritual of love permeated the culture of the late Middle Ages, both in literature and in the visual arts. One of the most attractive examples of this fad comes to us in the form of this 15th century stained glass work. One of the world's most ancient preserved civil stained glass pieces, it shows us the art of living as a cultivated elite of the day. The players wear elegant clothing and extravagant headpieces, as was fashionable in the 15th century. The lady is draped in a long gown edged in fur. The top of her forehead is shaved, in the manner of elegant ladies of the beginning of the 15th century, and her bicornate hairstyle was known as "split bread". Her partner's headgear is a magnificent chaperon that forms a sort of turban on his head. Grisaille and silver stain, two techniques marking the preference for painting on glass, are used on very pure glass of variable thickness, some of which is very thin. Its remarkable workmanship has made it one of the best examples of mid-15th century art in Lyon.