Danish Estates: Nording Carved Horn Tobacco Pipe

Showcasing the workshop's whimsical shaping, this Horn from Nørding is a highly stylized interpretation of the form. The bowl stands tall, its walls flaring gradually from the sweeping heel toward the craggy, sloped rim. A muscular shank makes a seamless transition from the bowl and joins to a sleek saddle stem with a trio of plump expansion rings fashioned at its base. Defined by a series of deeply carved channels from rim to shank end, the stummel here boasts a stimulating textural experience, all of which is dressed in a rich, smooth finish.

A trailblazer for the Danish Fancy style, Erik Nørding has been handcrafting pipes since the 1960s. Even before his pipe-making career, Nørding always had a knack for invention. Taking after his father, he worked as a blacksmith when he was 15 years old and later studied engineering, all in preparation to one day take over his family's factory. After graduating, Nørding veered away from running the factory and took up fashioning pipe-making machinery, which would lead him toward making his own pipes.