Smooth Freehand Bent Dublin with Rosewood (Swan) Tobacco Pipe

This is a really fascinating piece from our friend Benni Jorgensen, amateur tennis player and professional pipe maker (though given every time I call, he's just finished playing tennis, I sometimes wonder if it's not the other way around). This pipe, however, has nothing that I can discern having to do with tennis.

It is rare that we see a Danish pipe today in either the Larsen tradition (as typified by Teddy and Former) or the Sixten tradition (as typified by Jess, Lars et alii) makes a piece so thoroughly evocative of Danish 'Fancy' freehands of the 1970s (think Preben Holm). Of course, it's finished to a very modern Danish standard and demonstrates restraint, something that the makers of Fancy freehands from that era seemed entirely unable to demonstrate (but, since it was the 70s, you have to cut them just a little slack).

Alright, so where am I going with this? Specifically, the sideways, asymmetrical sweeping of the bowl, joined by the radical ridge that sits at the back right side of the bowl, plus the wide plateau top and the prow-like top-front of the bowl, all are clear, albeit formalized, nods in the direction of the style that Preben Holm made famous. However, nothing of the sort of erratic themelessness of that style is evidenced here. Clear constraints (which, to my mind are required in all art and craft) are imposed: the clean lined saddle stem, the rosewood shank cap and the carefully executed fit and finish all belie the utter chaos exhibited by its stylistic forebearers. Oh, and yeah, the grain is wickedly good too.

-- Sykes Wilford