Sven Knudsen (c. 1970s) Dantonian Full Straight Smooth Lovat Estate Briar Pipe, Danish Estates

Description

Dantonian PipeWorks was a short-lived, collaborative project during the 1970s, created by two of the most acclaimed and influential figures in all of post-war pipe making: the brothers Sven Knudsen and Teddy Knudsen. Though their individual “styles” when it came to pipe design would be quite different—especially as the younger sibling, Teddy, grew older—Dantonian was, nonetheless, a not-uncommon example of family members from the upper echelons of Danish pipe making performing their craft together. It’s something we’ve seen with Viggo Nielsen, Jorgen Nielsen, and Kai Nielsen; Sixten Ivarsson, Lars Ivarsson, and Nanna Ivarsson; and Peder Jeppesen and Christian Noah Jeppesen, to give just a few examples.

This particular Dantonian was made by Sven Knudsen, so it is he who we will focus on here. Sven Knudsen was, we might say, one of the “original greats” of post-war Scandinavian pipe making. His career began in the 1950s, where he worked at Suhr’s Pibemageri, one of the first major artisan pipe workshops in Denmark, whose alumni also included Poul Rasmussen, Sixten Ivarsson, Peter Brakner, Emil Chonowitsch, Svend Axel Celius, and a very young Hans “Former” Nielsen. After leaving Suhr’s, he was the first foreman at the newly-founded W.O. Larsen workshop, where he designed many of the most famous shapes associated with that institution (in addition to carving the high-grade Straight Grain models), while also selling pipes under his own name, including through Pibe-Dan (later known as Pipe Dan). For a while he worked alongside Anne Julie until, in the early 1970s, and in search of greater independence, he formed Dantonian PipeWorks. It is at that point that pipes like this one were made.

It is, undoubtedly, a very beautiful pipe, and indeed one of the high-end pipes from what was already a very high-end make; a Full Straight, referring to its superior straight grain. Looking at it, though, we might wonder why it does not look especially “Danish.” There is a good reason for that. Even among today’s most renowned Danish pipe makers, including many who helped define the convention-breaking forms of “Danish style” pipes, such as Hans “Former” Nielsen, Jens “Tao” Nielsen, and the recently departed Jess Chonowitsch, there is a great respect—and, in many cases, marked preference—for “traditional,” Anglo-French shapes. For the early Danes, as well as Denmark-based artisans like Sixten Ivarsson, this inclination toward the classics was even more pronounced. Their designs often pushed at the boundaries established by the founding factories of London and Saint-Claude, but rarely to the same extent as the generations that succeeded them. Instead, they made their names through refining shapes like the cutty, the Dublin, the Rhodesian, the billiard and, as in the case of this one, the Lovat, so that, arguably, such shapes could reach their true potential, both aesthetically and functionally. And their successes in that endeavor helped create the conditions that allowed a whole new conception of pipe design to emerge and flourish in the decades that followed.

The condition is very good. Some inner rim charring and minor handling marks.

Details:

Length: 5.8″ / 147.3mm

Bowl Width: 0.80 / 20.32mm

Bowl Depth: 1.59″ / 40.38mm

Weight: 1.1oz / 32g