Graziano Tendi Partially Sandblasted Foursquare Panel Billiard Handmade Briar Pipe, New

Description

The Italian artisan scene is, today, more vibrant than it has perhaps ever been. While the 20th century was largely dominated by seminal workshops, such as Mastro de Paja and Castello, their many offshoots, such as Ser Jacopo and Caminetto, and the familial dynasties frequently bound up with them, such as the Roveras, the Ascortis, and the Musicos, the 21st century has seen an emergence of networks of solo carvers, whose talents have come to rival both the great workshops of their homeland and their solo counterparts abroad, such as in Denmark or the United States. Graziano Tendi is just such a pipe maker. Having been enamored with tobacco pipes since he was a teenager, he has, for over a decade, been crafting his own pipes under the Tendi name. Pipe Tendi has been a genuine cult hit, even at home in the notoriously competitive Italian pipe scene, so it is our great pleasure to carry them in America for the first time.

While Tendi makes pipes in a variety of styles, the majority of his works are traditional shapes in the English-French mold, which makes him quite rare among his contemporaries in Italy and abroad. Instead, he is most often far closer to late 20th and early 21st century neoclassicists like Bill Taylor, of the UK’s Ashton, or even J.T. Cooke and Michael Parks in the US and Canada respectively.

In the case of this Tendi, it takes the form of a classic of Anglo-French factory pipe making, though with a few touches that bring it much closer to the more contemproary renditions of British and North American carvers. That classic is the “foursquare,” a billiard sitter distinguished by its four-paneled shank and eight-paneled bowl. Despite its well-defined geometry, it’s not an easy shape by any measure, though in this instance Tendi has knocked it out of the park. Opting for a more muscular composition than, say, the Dunhill Quaint Shape EK, or the Peterson 444, it is instead an all-round far more stout affair, which Tendi has also used as a canvas for one of his hallmark ring grain sandblasts.

Details:

Length: 5.7″ / 144.7mm

Bowl Width: 0.78 / 19.81mm

Bowl Depth: 1.56″ / 39.62mm

Weight: 1.9oz / 56g