Knight chess piece - 1940
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Knight chess piece
© Wedgwood Museum
This chess figure of a blue jasper knight epitomises Machin’s soft and humorous style.
This chess figure of a blue jasper knight epitomises Machin’s soft and humorous style.
- Type of object: Ornamental ware/chess piece
- Year first produced: 1940
- Body: Jasper
- Material: Ceramic
- Accession number: 11180
- Dimensions: 130 mm (height), 40 mm (width)
Related people
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Arnold Machin
Arnold Machin
Machin was born in Stoke-on-Trent in 1911. He started work at the age of 14 as an apprentice china painter at the Minton Pottery, and during the Depression he learnt to sculpt at the Art School in Stoke-on-Trent. He later moved to Derby, and the Royal Academy in London. After spending the Second World War as a conscientious objector, he returned to modelling and sculpture, and created many notable ceramics which are now prized collectors' items. In 1946 he was elected an associate member of the Royal Academy, was appointed a Master of Sculpture from 1959 to 1966 and became the longest-serving member of the Academy. He was elected an Academician in 1956 and a Fellow of the Royal Society of British Sculptors. From 1951 he was a tutor at the Royal College of Art, where he entered the culture that was to bring him his most celebrated commissions. He was probably best remembered for the designing of the new decimal coinage effigies of Queen Elizabeth in 1964 and 1967 and for the definitive issue of postage stamps in 1967.
