Where Play Meets Decorative Arts

With our chess sets and board games, we strive to create beautiful objets d’art that will add unique colours, shapes, textures and talking-points to your interior design scheme.

There’s something about a chess set displayed on a table or sideboard that people find irresistible. It’s familiar yet intriguing; inviting yet slightly aloof. The pieces demand to be studied from all angles, picked up and moved; you can’t help wanting to feel their weight, hear the sound they make as you slide or place them in position. It’s a tactile, engaging experience you simply don’t get from, say, a vase, or other piece of standard decorative art.

Not surprisingly, then, chess sets are an increasingly go-to item for those looking to add interest to their interior design. As a growing number of leading interior designers have recognised, one of our Purling London chess sets will add its unique colours, shapes, textures and talking-points to its surroundings as an exquisite objet d’art in its own right.

Our Art Chess Sets have featured in photoshoots for top British interior designers Bailey London and Landmass; we’ve also staged our own shoot with our friends at Gotham Designs. In 2016, we were delighted to be selected as a ‘future trend’ at Maison & Objet, the highly prestigious trade show for the international interior design and lifestyle industry, held biennially in Paris and renowned as one of the most important events of its kind in Europe.

The Purling London range includes a vast array of designs and styles, so there really is something for everyone, whether you’re looking for something quite conservative and classical, or you’re drawn to the bold, contemporary and extravagant, like our pieces by leading urban pop artist Lhouette.

Of course, the truest expression of one’s individual tastes is to have an original piece created for a specific setting or purpose. For example, the Faberge egg, was originally commissioned by the Russian Tsars Alexander III and Nicholas II as Easter gifts for their wives and mothers. Each of the 52 ‘Imperial’ eggs they commissioned was one of a kind, and is now among the rarest and most valuable items of decorative art ever created.

Our Purling London Art Chess sets continue that noble tradition. We can produce our Bold Chess sets with custom colours to your specification – or, for the ultimate in exclusivity, completely bespoke sets hand-painted by one of the top contemporary artists we work with. These can be made to your exact requirements in terms of design, theme and colour palette; you’ll have the opportunity to communicate directly with the artist to discuss your wishes, get advice about designs, and receive messages and photos to update you on your set’s progress.

We’ve already undertaken a number of commissions from private and corporate clients to produce sets to match both domestic interiors and corporate branding. Plus, unlike Faberge eggs, our Art Chess Sets are explicitly intended to be handled, not simply admired from afar (and you don’t need to belong to a royal dynasty to order one, either.)

Better still, your Purling London Art Chess set isn’t confined to a flat surface. It’s fitted with a unique bracket that allows it to be displayed on a wall as a painting (or put safely out of the way for storage) giving you even more interior design options. As an added bonus, the board rests on French cleats, which makes it appear to ‘float’ above the table when you set it down again.