This month’s theme at Lanterne Hermès is “Drawn to Play”. Drawing is one of the first forms of play we experience; perhaps that is why even as adults, the act of drawing returns us to the pure, innocent spirit of childhood. It allows us to play with a variety of materials, colours, and textures in a never-ending series of creative experiments.

Under the supervision of artistic directors Charlotte Macaux Perelman and Alexis Fabry, the Hermès home collections have always offered board games such as chess, dominoes, mahjong, and backgammon.

Hermès’s Samarcande chess set is named after the city of Samarkand in Uzbekistan, which was historically a vital crossroads at the intersection of the East and West. Samarkand’s location on the Silk Road made it a prominent trading hub for precious materials—like the wood used in this chess set.

The singular designs of the chess pieces were created in 2009 in the style of the Samarcande horse head paperweight—previously created by Hermès Studio Dessins, which designs most of the home collections.

This iconic Samarcande chess set presents an exclusive board made of leather marquetry. The 64 Epsom calfskin squares are carefully assembled by master craftspeople to create a surface that is absolutely even. Each chess piece is cut from a single piece of solid wood—mahogany or cassia—and then hand-carved and polished by the artisans into its final shape. Keen-eyed chess players will also notice a certain refined detail: an engraved Clou de Selle stainless steel weight embedded into every piece.