Maigurs Knets ** Long Shank Turtle w/ Figural Carvings Estate Briar Pipe, Unsmoked

Description

Latvian-born American artisan Maigurs Knets is an artisan whose pipes continually defy categorization. As with a select few contemporaries, such as Kent Rasmussen or Geiger, it often appears as though the common pipe lexicon simply hasn’t “caught up” with him yet. Unlike just about any of his contemporaries, however, Knets’ designs are unique not only in their genre-defying shaping, but also in their highly unusual finishing. Given that Knets has college degrees in Antique Furniture Restoration, Wood Carving, and Sculpting, this shouldn’t be too surprising. Nevertheless, his pipes are often exactly that—surprising.

This pipe is a good example. Forgive me if I’m mistaken, but I think it is a long shank variation on a signature motif in Knets’ work, the “turtle.” With contours a little like the cobra and sphinx shapes of Scandinavian design, Knets’ turtle shapes have a broad, curved fore, which dips back into a more conventionally round shape at each edge (the sphinx is closer in this regard). But, as can be seen here, Knets often uses elevated spaces of this sort as a canvas for figural carvings. The sloping fore of this pipe has been used for a geometric patterning not entirely unlike a turtle’s shell, though a closer inspection reveals it to be a woodland motif, replete with thorny leaves and red berries (Latvia as a nation has a singularly close cultural connection to nature, something perhaps most evident in their midsummer festivals and which may well have been expressed in Knets’ choice of motif). The remainder of the briar has been, fittingly, left to its own devices as finishing goes, with just a light, natural finish that allows tiger-stripe flame grain to ripple up the entirety of the pipe’s extended shank.

This pipe is completely unsmoked. It comes with its original leather sleeve.

Details:

Length: 6.6″ / 167.6mm

Bowl Width: 0.76 / 19.30mm

Bowl Depth: 1.16″ / 29.46mm

Weight: 1.7oz / 50g