23 September 2010

Cavaliers or Conquistadors?

In my series on Top eBay Chess Items by Price, when I have a choice of several items to feature I usually favor the most artistic. I'm not sure why this is -- maybe it has something to do with my conviction that the web is a visual medium. The last painting I featured was the post on Fr.Dumar...l?, the next one is 'Antique Painting of Cavaliers Playing Chess by G Appert', pictured below. It sold 'Buy It Now' for US $1,500.


The description said,

This is an absolutely fabulous Antique Painting of Cavaliers Playing Chess by G Appert IN EXCELLENT CONDITION!!! This wonderful painting is a genuine original oil painting by listed artist Georges Appert. It is a superb example depicting a group of conquistadors playing chess. It has a spectacular composition and is extremely well executed. It measures approximately 23" by 27" framed, 17" by 21" site.

Note the use of 'cavaliers' in the title and 'conquistadors' in the description. In many eBay descriptions, the seller guesses at the period covered by the subject matter, e.g. if it's probably English and it looks old, call it 'Victorian'. Since the artist of our featured painting was Georges Appert (French, 1850-1934), I guess that 'cavaliers' is more likely to be correct. The word 'cavalier' also happens to be the French word for the chess Knight, bringing this post full circle.

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