Chess Set

The French Regence pieces are named for the Café de la Régence in Paris, one of the most important centres of chess in the 18th and 19th centuries. Almost all the great masters of the period played there, alongside such famous figures as Voltaire and Napoleon. Such was the renown of the Café de la Régence as a chess hub, that the pieces used there – which were of a common pattern in Europe at the time – came to take its name. The pieces resemble stacks of orbs and disks, and like many other sets in use at that time, the queens, bishops and pawns largely resemble each other, differing only in height, and this often led to confusion for players who were unfamiliar with the pattern, and explains why the Staunton pieces readily supplanted them. However, French Regence pieces have remained in use into the 20th century.