Ivory or ebony on a chessboard: these are the pieces. For centuries, prestige sets paired white pieces in ivory with black pieces in ebony. Ivory then gave way to boxwood, more affordable and later the only one permitted, and ebony remained the benchmark wood for the black pieces, imitated by ebonised boxwood.
The phrase turns up often in crossword grids: “ivory or ebony on a chessboard”. Depending on the number of squares, the expected answer is a word such as PAWN or PIECE. Behind the riddle lies a real history of materials: that of a contrast between a precious white and a deep black, which makers have reproduced with ever more accessible woods.
Ivory or ebony on a chessboard: the origin of the contrast
The rules require two clearly distinct sides. The most elegant way to achieve this, for a luxury object, was to pair two naturally opposed materials: ivory, creamy white, dense and smooth to the touch, and ebony, of a black that few woods equal. This pairing is found in many antique sets preserved in museums and has lastingly tied chess to the idea of black and white.
Ivory was as costly as it was fragile in the face of humidity. From the nineteenth century, most sets intended for play therefore used a pale wood, boxwood, for the white pieces. The first Staunton sets, put on sale in London in 1849, were offered in boxwood and ebony, and sometimes in ivory. Today, trade in elephant ivory is very strictly controlled in France (order of 16 August 2016 and subsequent texts) and in the European Union: boxwood has definitively taken over.
Do you own an antique ivory set and wonder whether you can sell it? The question is covered on our page on the historical styles of chess pieces, with a pointer to a detailed article on the regulations.
Ebony: the natural black
- Ebony
- The very dense, very hard heartwood of several trees of the genus Diospyros, black or blackish brown, which polishes to a shine without any varnish. Gabon ebony and Macassar ebony are the best known.
Gabon ebony (Diospyros crassiflora), harvested in Central Africa, is the blackest, with almost no visible figure. Its average density is around 955 kg/m³ and its Janka hardness exceeds 13,000 newtons, which makes it one of the hardest woods used for chess pieces. The species is on the IUCN Red List.
Macassar ebony (Diospyros celebica), native to Sulawesi in Indonesia, is striped with brown and tawny. Even denser (about 1,120 kg/m³), it is used mainly for board veneers and decorative sets. It is classed as vulnerable by the IUCN.
Neither of these woods is in the CITES appendices, unlike the ebonies of Madagascar, listed in Appendix II since 2013. Their rarity and slow growth explain the price of solid ebony sets.
Why are the black pieces made of ebony?
For three reasons. Colour, first: no other wood spontaneously offers such a clear black. Weight, next: an ebony piece is naturally heavier than a boxwood piece of the same size, which improves its stability. Durability, finally: the hardness of ebony preserves the fineness of the mouldings and of the rook’s crenellations. Its drawback is a tendency to split if it dries too fast or undergoes sharp changes in humidity, hence the importance of a well-stabilised wood and suitable storage (see caring for a wooden set).
Boxwood: the white that became the standard
Boxwood (Buxus sempervirens) took the place of ivory for the white pieces. Its extremely fine grain lends itself to detail, its density (about 965 kg/m³) rivals that of ebony and its pale colour ages to a honey yellow. European boxwood having long been worked in the French Jura, it is closely bound up with the history of the turners of the Saint-Claude and Dortan area (see Saint-Claude and the Jura).
What is ebonised boxwood?
- Ebonised boxwood
- Boxwood stained black to imitate ebony. It is used for the black pieces of more accessible sets: the same density and the same turning finesse as the white pieces, at a cost well below that of solid ebony.
Ebonising consists in impregnating the wood with a black stain, then finishing it (varnish, matt lacquer or wax) to fix the colour. Well done, it gives a deep, even black. It can be recognised up close by the boxwood grain that sometimes shows through the stain, and by the edge of the base, which is sometimes paler. It may wear at the edges after years of intensive play, which is not a flaw but a patina.
| Criterion | Ebony | Ebonised boxwood |
|---|---|---|
| Colour | Natural black, sometimes streaked with brown | Stained black, uniform |
| Weight | Heavy, often more than the white pieces | Identical to the white boxwood pieces |
| Look when polished | Naturally glossy | Depends on the finish |
| Ageing | Stable in colour; prone to splitting | The stain may wear at the edges |
| Cost | High | Moderate |
Jaques of London and the boxwood and ebony pairing
The London firm of Jaques, which made the first Staunton sets in 1849, fixed the image of the tournament set in boxwood and ebony, weighted and felted. The story of this pattern, from its design to its worldwide spread, is told on our page on the Staunton pattern. To see the boxwood and ebony pairing on current models, Le Palais des Échecs presents Staunton chess pieces in boxwood and ebony and their variants in ebonised boxwood.
Frequently asked questions
Ivory or ebony on a chessboard: what is the answer?
They are the pieces of the set: the white pieces were traditionally ivory, the black ones ebony. In a crossword, the answer depends on the number of letters (PAWN, PIECE…).
Why are the black pieces made of ebony?
Because ebony is the only common wood with such a clear natural black, and it is very dense (stability) and very hard (crisp mouldings). Ebonised boxwood imitates it at lower cost.
What is ebonised boxwood?
It is boxwood stained black to imitate ebony. It has the same density as the white boxwood pieces and gives an even black, at a price well below solid ebony.
Sources: IUCN Red List and The Wood Database (ebonies, boxwood), CITES (CoP16, 2013), Légifrance (order of 16 August 2016 on elephant ivory), Wikipedia: Staunton chess set.
Further reading
- Chess piece woodsThe species compared: colour, density, hardness and CITES.
- The Staunton pattern1849, Nathaniel Cooke, John Jaques and Howard Staunton.
- Historical stylesRégence, Selenus, Dubrovnik, Lardy: the great families of pieces.