Herriot Pipes Partially Rusticated Egg Handmade Briar Pipe, New

Description

In 2003, one of France’s preeminent pipe luminaries, Erwin Van Hove, jubilantly proclaimed, “Hallelujah! One of the very best American artisans has recently settled on French soil.” Two decades later, Antoine Grenard, director of Chapuis-Comoy and president of the Confrérie des Maîtres-Pipiers de Saint-Claude, oversaw the induction of another artisan originally from the Anglophone world into its hallowed brotherhood. Van Hove was, of course, welcoming Trever Talbert. The Confrérie, on the other hand, was welcoming Chris Herriot. Parallels between the two are difficult to ignore; both were outsiders who laid down roots in France and, crucially, thrived by it. Both forged connections with the Francophone pipe community, developing friendships and associations that would help them lay the foundations of their respective brands. And both would build something on these foundations that garnered them significant national and international acclaim. In Herriot’s case, this meant apprenticing under Bruno Nuttens (himself a former student of Pierre Morel and Tom Eltang), spending several days each week laboring in Nuttens’ Charpey workshop, and the rest of his time in his own.

Just before this last batch of pipes was made, Chris Herriot traveled to Copenhagen, Denmark, on an invitation to study pipe making with one of his mentors’ mentors, Tom Eltang. With this pipe, we see Herriot combining elements of the Danish lineage to which Eltang belongs, as well as the distinctive style he’s cultivated in the Herriot Pipes brand. The design is a classic Danish egg, perched atop a long, slender stem. In many ways, it’s not entirely far off from the Polonius shapes of Gert Holbek who, like Eltang, was a notable Pibe-Dan (later Pipe Dan) alumnus. Herriot’s rendition is more modern and more “Herriot,” however. Dressed in the artisan’s signature rustication, the bowl is paired with a swirling, seafoam green ebonite stem that makes for a great contrast with its more subdued, stone and burgundy tones.

Details:

Length: 5.9″ / 149.8mm

Bowl Width: 0.71 / 18.03mm

Bowl Depth: 1.50″ / 38.1mm

Weight: 1.6oz / 46g