Ed Burak Connoisseur Smooth Bell Calabash Estate Briar Pipe, American Estates

Description

Known as the “dean of American pipe designers” Ed Burak was not a pipe-maker per se. Rather, Burak was someone who worked with the master carvers of his time to bring his distinct ideas of what a pipe could be to life. As the owner of the Connoisseur Pipe Shop, Burak designed freehand pipes so singularly representative of pipe-making as an artistic endeavor, that many of the resulting works ended up in New York’s Museum of Modern Art.

While Ed Burak’s designs covered a vast range of shapes and styles, two defining characteristics dominated his portfolio. One was large, tall bowls—often based on traditional Anglo-French shapes with exaggerated proportions—and the other was the steep curvatures they embodied—again, playing on exaggerated figures from briar staples. As a result, many of his designs were highly evocative of musical instruments, especially brass instruments such as horns and saxophones. This rendition of what most closely resembles a calabash shows off that motif, albeit by way of a slightly different family of musical devices: bells. This happens to be one of Burak’s signature “bell” shapes, owing its name to the distinctive contours of its large bowl.

The condition is very good. Some darkening and wear on the inner rim and a professionally made replacement stem.

Details:

Length: 6″ / 152.4mm

Bowl Width: 1.01 / 25.65mm

Bowl Depth: 2.18″ / 55.37mm

Weight: 2.3oz / 68g