Don Carlos (Two Note) Smooth Squat Bulldog (Estate)

Don Carlos belongs to a historic lineage within Italian pipe making. The workshop was founded by Bruto Sordini (along with his wife Rosaria), who had previously made pipes for Mastro de Paja, where he also met Giancarlo Guidi. In 1981, Sordini and Guidi left Mastro de Paja to found their own workshop, Ser Jacopo. After years of making pipes at Ser Jacopo, Sordini once again departed to found a new venture, as he had ideas for shapes and styles that were quite different to Ser Jacopo’s established design philosophy. Sordini therefore created Don Carlos as a means of expressing this vision, resulting in pipes that are both quintessentially Italian, and bearing aesthetic that is wholly their own.

Like the music that so thoroughly inspires their work, the Sordinis’ designs for their Don Carlos pipes have an uncanny flowing quality, taking on lines and figures tha rise and fall like notes in a sweet melody. They’re beautifully finished and the smooths are superbly grained, of course, but it’s that flowing quality—notable among a number of post-Ser Jacopo Pesaro artisans—that distinguishes them from so many other pipes in the contemporary scene. This two-note grade Don Carlos is a rather supple re-envisioning of the Anglo-French squat bulldogs of the late 19th and early 20th century, for example, with a gentle quarter bend that culminates in an explosive finale of bird’s-eye at the bowl’s rim.

The condition is great. Some finish fading and slight handling marks.

Details:

Length: 6.1″ / 154.9mm

Bowl Width: 0.84 / 21.33mm

Bowl Depth: 1.09″ / 27.68mm

Weight: 1.7oz / 50g