The Chess Players by Thomas Eakins - 1876 - 29.8 x 42.6 cm Metropolitan Museum of Art The Chess Players by Thomas Eakins - 1876 - 29.8 x 42.6 cm Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Chess Players

Oil on wood • 29.8 x 42.6 cm
  • Thomas Eakins - July 25, 1844 - June 25, 1916 Thomas Eakins 1876

Thomas Eakins was an American realist painter, photographer, sculptor, and fine arts educator. He is widely acknowledged to be one of the most important American artists.

In this painting, the artist depicts a chess game between two friends in a Renaissance Revival parlor of a Philadelphia home. Eakins honored his father with a Latin inscription on the chess table drawer, translating to “Benjamin Eakins’s son painted this in ’76.” Above the mantel hangs a reproduction of a painting by Eakins’s principal French teacher, Jean-Léon Gérôme. Eakins followed Gérôme’s academic teachings, which is evident in the painting's careful spatial construction and meticulous detail. In 1881, The Chess Players became the first work accepted by the Metropolitan Museum as a gift from a living artist.

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P.P.S. Are you surprised to see a game of chess in a painting? Well, there's more! Join us in the world of chess in art! For more fun, see the articles below.