I was about to write, “It’s not often that I get blown away by a piece of Disney history,” … but that’s not true.  The best part of studying Disney history is the peek you often get into the lives of an extraordinary number of creative people.

This chessboard resurfaced at a Bonham’s auction last December.  I just stumbled upon it by accident in a catalog here in New York, although Didier Ghez actually posted about this months ago.

It’s illustrated by nearly 32 top Disney artists in 1940, including T. Hee, Albert Hurter, Dick Huemer, Ward Kimball, Fred Moore, Milt Kahl and Art Babbitt, not to mention the designers of Snow White, Pinocchio and Fantasia.  The front of this chessboard was in their catalog.  The back, with the key to the artists, was not.

Here’s the front AND back, with the artist key (but first, keep scrolling downward):

Here’s each square with this corresponding artist.  Seeing them like this really gives you an idea of the diversity of skill that Disney had under his roof.  So many different styles in the Mouse House, it’s both impressive and unfortunate they had to conform to a single style.