Tsuge Ikebana 1993 Smooth Asymmetrical Tomato Estate Briar Pipe, Unsmoked

Description

Tsuge is Japan’s largest and most internationally renowned pipe company, having been founded in 1936 by Kyoichiro Tsuge. In the 1970s, however, Tsuge was so impressed by the pipes coming out of Denmark, that he sent two of Tsuge’s own master pipe-makers, Kazuhiro Fukuda and Smio Satou, to hone their craft under the likes of Sixten Ivarsson and Jørgen Larsen. Upon their return, the Tsuge Ikebana workshop was established so that Fukuda, Satou, and their apprentices would have the means to create high-grade Japanese pipes to rival even those being made in Europe’s pipe-making capitals.

For decades now, one of the defining attributes associated with Japanese pipes has been asymmetry. In contrast to the geometric forms that dominated traditional pipe making—especially briar pipes—and even much of the early decades of modern, post-war pipe making, Japanese pipes have been notable for their eschewal of easily recognizable shapes or figures. An old friend of mine spoke of such pipes as expressions of Wabi-sabi, a kind of wide-ranging philosophical doctrine that has been part of Japanese culture for centuries. The aesthetic ideals of Wabi-sabi are rather different to those of typical of Western cultures, and as such the notion of beauty in the former seem like something of an inversion of the latter. The Japanese approach, as seen quite distinctly in this Tsuge Ikebana, finds beauty in imperfection and evanescence, which stands at odds with a preferences for orderliness and timelessness that is traceable to Western antiquity. On the other hand, it is not enough to simply appear “misshapen” to be beautiful; not unlike more modern Western art, it is a matter of letting just the right amount of chaos into a work. In this instance, the squat, slightly skewed angles of the bowl are softened by a mirroring of bird’s-eye patterns at its flanks, with cross-grain joining the two at its front and rear. Similarly, the wave-like concave curvature of the rim runs parallel to the base of the bowl. The result is something that captures and captivates the imagination, rather than confuse it. And, of course, is sure to smoke well, too.

This pipe is completely unsmoked, with an original (slightly flaked) bowl coating.

 

Details:

Length: 5.3″ / 134.6mm

Bowl Width: 0.82“ / 20.8mm

Bowl Depth: 1.10″ / 27.94mm

Weight: 1.6oz / 46g