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Death Playing Chess

History, Religious and Mythological Paintings

Death Playing Chess is a mural painted between 1480 and 1490 by the Swedish medieval painter Albertus Pictor in Taby Church near Stockholm. It shows a man playing chess against a skeleton, accompanied by a now largely illegible ribbon that once read I play checkmate. Pictor, who worked on murals in 36 churches across two Swedish regions and is considered the most active ecclesiastical painter of his era, combined anatomically precise figures with detailed period clothing and weaponry, and the Swedish History Museum holds a copy in its Stockholm collections. The image became widely known outside Sweden after the filmmaker Ingmar Bergman drew on it for a 1957 film, The Seventh Seal. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

Facts
Medium
Mural 1
Location
Taby Church, near Stockholm, Sweden 1
Classification
Genre
Painting 1
In the Other Atlases
Sources
1. Death Playing Chess (Wikipedia)
  • Lead paragraph, first sentence
    Death playing chess (in Swedish: Döden spelar schack) is a monumental painting in Täby Church located just outside Stockholm, Sweden.
  • Analysis section, last sentence
    The mural inspired Ingmar Bergman to create the film The Seventh Seal in 1957.
  • Genre reference
    Death Playing Chess is a mural painted between 1480 and 1490 by the Swedish medieval painter Albertus Pictor in Taby Church near Stockholm.
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