Selenus chess set

In 1616, in Leipzig, an author hiding behind the pseudonym Gustavus Selenus published a book on chess, “Chess, or the King's Game”. One of the prominently featured engraved illustrations adorning the book depicted two aristocrats at a chessboard. They played beautiful, unusually shaped pieces and, since the book sold pretty well across Europe for its time, the style got the name of Selenus. The style was very successful: despite the elegance and apparent sophistication of the pieces, they could be made of a variety of materials, including wood, bone, silver and even glass. Curiously, France got infatuated with the style to the point that it invented Selenus, a special technique for trimming park trees, used to this day.