Café Life in Montparnasse

This is the third example of chess art on this blog from Gandalf's Gallery of Flickr. For the previous example, see Attention to Detail (January 2018; Gustav Wentzel, 1859 - 1927).

Henri Hayden - Chess Players (1913) © Flickr user Gandalf's Gallery under Creative Commons.

The description started,

Set in the Café La Rotonde, this work encapsulates the internationalism and tolerance that pervaded café life in Montparnasse. The game of chess is central to the composition. A battle of intellect and strategies, chess may be seen as a metaphor for the anxieties felt by many concerning the arrival of so many foreign artists in Paris.

For the rest of the description, see the 'Lot Essay' in Henri Hayden (1883-1970), Les joueurs d'échecs (christies.com; 'Impressionist & Modern Art Day Sale, London, 6 February 2020'). The lot listing also mentions,

Price realised: GBP 1,139,250
Estimate: GBP 300,000 - GBP 500,000

For more about the artist, see Wikipedia's Henri Hayden. For more chess items from Gandalf's Gallery, see Search results for chess (gandalfsgallery.blogspot.com).