Chess of the Gentry and Military

This current edition of Top eBay Chess Items by Price makes three in a row for the artwork subcategory. After Chess, Ebay, Christmas, and Paintings and Chess Stone Lithograph, we now have the painting shown below. Titled 'James de V. Aylward Oil on Board Chess Players 1905', it sold for around $610, 'Best offer accepted'.

The description added,

A very fine detailed oil on board painting in very good condition, beautifully framed in a gilded frame. The painting is of a pair of high society men playing chess, whilst a third looks on. It is set in an opulent Georgian setting around 1800 period. Despite its small size, the detail is superb, with a painstaking eye for every aspect of the room and its contents. The painting is signed J. D. AYLWARD and dated 1905.

James Devine Aylward, also known as James de V. Aylward, was a British artist who exhibited between 1895 and 1917. Not very much appears to be known of him, but most of his work tends to concentrate on the late 18th and early 19th Century period. His subjects are also generally gentry or military. He is registered as living in Liverpool in 1895 (he exhibited 33 pictures at the Walker Art Gallery) and London (9 in the Royal Academy and 15 at Royal Institute of Oil Painters) in 1897. A great example of subject painting.

Size painting: 20 x 15 cm • Size Frame: 38 x 33 x 4.5 cm • Weight: 1520g

A search on 'chess aylward' picks up a second chess painting by the same artist.