Rolando Negoita Walnut Carved Brandy w/Silver Estate Briar Pipe, American Estates

Description

Born in Romania, Rolando Negoita studied at the National University of Arts in Bucharest before moving to the United States, where he was a professor at the Parsons School of Design in New York. Negoita’s first forays into pipe-making began in what was then the Socialist Republic of Romania, due to impassible difficulties in acquiring them on the market. Negoita thus resolved to make his own. In America, Negoita continued to develop his pipe-making skills, assisted by figures such as Tom Eltang and Trever Talbert along the way. Though he was not born there, Negoita ultimately became one of America’s most renowned artisan pipe-makers, which he remained until his passing in 2021.

Rolando Negoita was a master of pipe design, both in the vastness of his imagination and in his ability to execute the sheer variety of novel pipes he could think up. The sources of inspiration for these designs were similarly vast and often highly unorthodox. These sources included various flora, though typically not quite in the way one might expect. Take this one: while no two Negoita pipes were exactly alike, one motif that appeared a few times in the Romanian-American artisan’s portfolio was the walnut. Negoita seemed to find the texture particularly apt for pipes and experimented with different techniques for capturing the essence of the walnut’s shell and applying it to briar. In the case of this pipe, the briar has not only been hand-carved, but sandblasted afterwards, bringing it even closer to its source than others I’ve come across. As was also common for Negoita’s work, this pipe additionally features an engraved collar of Negoita’s own making, as he was not only a skilled woodworker but also a professor in the art of metalsmithing.

The condition is very good. Minor rim darkening and finish fading.

 

Details:

Length: 6.5″ / 165.1mm

Bowl Width: 0.80 / 20.32mm

Bowl Depth: 1.73″ / 43.94mm

Weight: 2.3oz / 68g