2025 FEATURED CHESS SET PROJECT

Through the Featured Chess Set Project, the World Chess Hall of Fame showcases a variety of chess sets throughout the year. These include highlights from our own collection as well as chess sets owned by friends and chess lovers who have special stories to accompany their sets.

APRIL 2025

Mother Nature vs the Woodcutter Chess Set

Lorrie Matthews of LKM Pottery
Mother Nature vs. the Woodcutter Chess Set
2023
King size: Mother Nature: 2 7/8 in.; Woodcutter: 3 1/8 in.
Porcelain
Collection of the World Chess Hall of Fame

Artist Lorrie Matthews, who spent time with family by the rivers, lakes, and forests of the American Northwest as a child, celebrates the outdoors through her artwork. In this hand-sculpted and painted chess set, Mother Nature faces off against a woodcutter. The mountains in Idaho and the flora and fauna found there, including the bald eagle and golden eagle perched atop the kings, adorn the set. Clever foxes and fierce bears appear as the knights.

MARCH 2025

Pocket Chess Sets

In honor of Women’s History Month, the World Chess Hall of Fame is presenting two featured sets of the month highlighting women’s contributions to the game.
Maker unknown
Pocket Chess Set
Date unknown
King size: 1 in.
Board: 7 ½  x 7 ½ in.
Leather and  plastic
Collection of the World Chess Hall of Fame, gift of the family of Jacqueline Piatigorsky
While it may look simple, this chess set was a prized possession of US Chess Hall of Fame inductee Jacqueline Piatigorsky, who was greatly influential in American chess. In her memoir, Jump in the Waves, Piatigorsky wrote, “I had a small pocket set which I always carried with me, and I studied each position in great depth.” Piatigorsky sponsored the prestigious Piatigorsky Cup tournament, which brought world-class players to the United States to compete and promoted chess to people of varied backgrounds through the Piatigorsky Foundation. She was also a top woman player in the United States in the 1950s and 1960s, representing the United States in the first Women’s Chess Olympiad (1957) and placing second in the 1965 US Women’s Chess Championship.
Maker unknown
Travel Chess and Checkers Set
c. 1940s
King size: 13/16 in.
Board: 8 x 8 in.
Cardboard and paper
Collection of the World Chess Hall of Fame
This travel set, sponsored by the Women’s Victory League of New York, is a World War II-era set, possibly meant to be sent overseas to servicemen. The Women’s Victory League was a group of women sponsoring events and sending care packages overseas. The events sponsored were all military dances, where servicemen could dance with women from the community. These were often themed dances, such as an Armistice Dance or a Bundles for Buddies Dance. These dances would fund the packages sent overseas of items like books, magazines, newspapers, cigarettes, chess sets, and much more. The Women’s Victory League was also dedicated to sending gifts to wounded service members in military hospitals and similar places without access to their families on special occasions.
FEBRUARY 2025

Love and Chess Chess Set/Mallory Greenleaf’s Chess Set

Once Upon a Book Club
Love and Chess Chess Set / Mallory Greenleaf’s Chess Set
2024
King size: 2 ½ in.
Board: 11 x 11 in.
Material: Wood and cardboard
Collection of the World Chess Hall of Fame

Fall in love with this chess set inspired by Ali Hazelwood’s debut YA novel, Check & Mate (2023). The set’s title refers to the book’s main character, Mallory Greenleaf. Greenleaf is a former chess prodigy who has left the chess world behind to help her family. She gets thrust back into it when she unwittingly beats one of the most famous chess prodigies, Nolan Sawyer, in a charity meet.

As Nolan and Mallory help each other rekindle their love of chess, they cannot fight their feelings for each other. The board’s border has the same gradient design scheme as the book’s cover. Ali Hazelwood is a romance author most known for her main characters being women in STEM fields.

JANUARY 2025

Roosters and Hens Chess Set

Maker unknown
Roosters and Hens Chess Set
c. late 20th century
King size: 3 ⅜ in.
Material: Resin
Collection of the World Chess Hall of Fame

Chickens perch atop their coops, ready to see which side will rule the roost in this chess set. Each detailed piece represents different breeds of chickens, including ones with unique appearances like black silkies that are the rooks on the black side.

January’s Featured Chess Set is part of the collection of the World Chess Hall of Fame (WCHOF). Since its creation in 1986, the WCHOF has endeavored to highlight the history and cultural significance of the game of chess. The WCHOF’s collection is diverse and includes sets once owned by legendary players, mass-produced sets with lively pop culture themes, antique ivory sets, travel sets, as well as chess computers.

Through these artifacts, the WCHOF illustrates how chess has evolved through its over 1500-year history. This set is part of the museum’s permanent collection.