Page 34 - Francis Cotes - A winning end-game
P. 34
Fig 17. HENRY RAEBURN, General Francis Dundas and Towards the end of his 1761 Essay, Hoyle had
Eliza Cumming, his wife, playing chess, Aniston House, dealt with a particular end-game. ‘ The rule is’,
Midlothian. Hoyle wrote, ‘ if your King is opposite to your
Adversary’s King, having only one space
between them, and he is to move; in that Case
you are always to play your King in such a
Manner as to keep his King opposite to your
King, whenever he is to move, and it must be a
Draw Game’. 11 The two pieces remaining on
the Welbys’ board are both kings: since they
can only move one square in any direction, and
never next to each other, they are destined to
move perpetually in each other’s orbit, equal
partners in a game that has no end.12
chess master himself –and even Andy Warhol. lll
But Cotes does not simply show chess, he
There was a poignant coda to this exuberant
follows the Renaissance painte rs in suggesting portrait. By the time the portrait was
that this intellectual pursuit can involve displayed, Cotes was ill, suffering continual pain
tenderness, and also physical excitement, and from gall-stones. A successful operation in 1768
moreover he makes the game work to a particular had been followed by a relapse, and in July
point. William is shown jumping to his feet, 1770 he took a strong dose of ‘soap-lees’, a kind
about to speak. It looks at first, as the twentieth- of lye or bleach, which was supposed to dissolve
century Cotes expert Edward Mead Johnson the stone – instead it poisoned him. Soon
presumed, that William has lost. Like the afterwards the Cavendish House studio and all
husband in Cornelis de Man’s picture, he
seems full of amazement and dismay, indicating 11. Ibid., p.50, Game XXVII
that his last remaining piece is about to be taken, 12. Johnson, op. cit, p. 33. The move was clarified by Phil Ehr, of
gesturing as if to say “What more can I do?”’.
But if we look closer and follow the couples’ the English Chess Federation, for the Christies catalogue, Old
pointing fingers, a different story emerges. Master & British Paintings, 3 July 2012, p.139
34
