You have to be quite a bit of a painting connoisseur to have ever heard of Emile Vloors. He was an Antwerp artist, born 1871 died 1952, whose main claims to fame are that he won the Belgian Prix de Rome,1 that he was director of the Antwerp Academy of Fine Arts, and, on a less exalted level, that he designed many a stamp or bill. To that list, we can now add that he has been the object of a Chess in Popular Culture post.
A very high resolution picture of the paintings can be found online, but even with that, the reconstruction was problematic. The pieces are of a type I’ve never seen before, and the view is from a highly inconvenient angle.2
I gave it a shot nonetheless and, barring the identities and positions of the pieces, it’s quite good: 3
Yes, I’m very much afraid the board is too tall. There is little more I can say. Sure, the position is a bit silly, even without the wrong board, but the reconstruction is so uncertain that I daren’t judge mister Vloors on that.
And I daren’t judge him on his painting either, because I have vanishingly little knowledge about such things. So what can I judge him on, then? Well, I like his name. Emile isn’t particularly, but Vloors has a certain charm.
Realism: 0/5 This is very unrealistic, but at the time Vloors was painting, realism was getting more and more out of fashion, so maybe it’s on purpose. It’s still damnable.
Probable winner: White, maybe? The reconstruction is too suspicious to give any claim much credence, though.
1. [I don’t know which Roman artist won the Prix d’Anvers.] ↩
2. [If he’s such a good artist, why does he focus on these women? Don’t young painters learn about framing?!.] ↩
3. [Not as good as this diagram editor, though.] ↩