Chess Players Journal — Gustav Wentzel 1886 Oslo

In 1886, the Norwegian painter Gustav Wentzel set up his easel in a bohemian interior in Christiania and painted two men playing chess. The painting he produced — Sjakkspillere, The Chess Players — is now part of the permanent collection of the National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design in Oslo. It is one of the finest examples of Norwegian naturalism of the nineteenth century: meticulous in its attention to light and texture, intimate in its psychological observation, and rich in the details of a complete intellectual life.

The front cover presents a detail of Wentzel's painting — the two players, Harald Bertrand and Oscar Lærum, absorbed in the game at a wooden table, a beer jug, pipes, and a green bottle beside the chess board, warm chiaroscuro light falling across their faces and hands from the left, colourful geometric tapestries visible in the background. The back cover reveals the full composition as Wentzel conceived it: the chess game set within a bohemian artist's studio, a canvas leaning face-down against the wall, a large indoor plant, a rich still life on the shelf above — ceramic vessels, a metal jug, a blue terrestrial globe, an open fan, a religious icon — and in the upper left corner, a mandolin hanging on the wall. In the lower right, the painter's signature: N. Gustav Wentzel 1886.

Product Details

• Format: 5.75 × 8 in (14.6 × 20.3 cm)
• Pages: 150 lined pages (75 sheets)
• Perforated pages — tear out cleanly without damaging the binding
• Paper weight: 90 gsm, suitable for fountain pens and pencils
• Hardcover with matte finish, casewrap sewn binding
• Weight: 400 g (14.1 oz)

Perfect For

• Chess players and enthusiasts drawn to the art and history of the game
• Admirers of Norwegian naturalism and 19th-century Nordic art
• Collectors of museum-quality art reproductions from the National Museum Oslo
• Those drawn to bohemian intellectual life, artist studios, and the world of Christiania in the 1880s
• Students and researchers of art history, chiaroscuro technique, and Scandinavian painting
• Thoughtful gifts for chess lovers, artists, and admirers of rare Norwegian painting

Read more: The Chess Players: Gustav Wentzel and the Bohemian Interior of 1886