C-Pipe Sandblasted Stacked Bent Bulldog Handmade Briar Pipe, New

Description

Not unlike certain 20th century Western pipe making institutions, such as Charatan, Pibe-Dan, or WO Larsen, a number of workshops in China have emerged in the 21st century filled with artisans working under a single banner. This includes GH Zhang, Qi Pipe Studio, and C-Pipe. With C-Pipe, however, there is something of a difference. Founded by former architect and lifelong pipe collector YiGang Wang, C-Pipe is a workshop of around a dozen artisans, most of whom originally came to pipe making from fields such as fine art and industrial design. While there are clear influences on C-Pipe’s output from various post-war schools, the workshop’s style is as varied as the individuals who work there. The resulting pipes reflect a synthesis of collective and individual creative endeavors, following a model closer to the ones pursued by Scandinavian post-war institutions, and which made artisan pipes what they are today.

In contrast to some of the other C-Pipe pieces we’ve listed recently, this one strikes as a little more subdued in its design. On the other hand, it blends enough of the “out of the ordinary” to remain fresh and interesting. Taking the form of a swooping, stacked bent bulldog, there’s a little bit of Peterson to the shaping, but also some affinities with the bulldogs of, say, Jorn Larsen or Anne Julie (back when she still made bent bulldogs, that is). The color palette is distinctive too, though not to the point of being gaudy, with the bowl’s crisp, red sandblast finish finding a nice complement in a hand-cut green and black cumberland stem. As I said—relatively subdued, but definitely interesting.

 

Details:

Length: 5.5″ / 139.7mm

Bowl Width: 0.80 / 20.32mm

Bowl Depth: 1.73″ / 43.68mm

Weight: 1.2oz / 36g