Doctor's: Smooth Apple with Bamboo and Boxwood (Double Flash) Tobacco Pipe

The underside of this Apple from Roman Kovalev of Doctor's pipes curls ever-so-slightly upward, creating a subtly angular aesthetic from the button to the firm heel. At the bowl, the Russian carver keeps the shape rather standard, the bowl tapering toward the rim for an affably plump feel in hand with feathery flame grain emphasized by a deep, walnut contrast stain. Moving to the shank, though, and Kovalev's recognizable style becomes readily apparent.

The shank is extended with a craggy, inconsistent ferrule of bamboo that can best be described as "oval-shaped." Despite the bamboo's asymmetrical nature, Roman has brought balance from the chaos in the way he has fitted the ferrule with the briar and stem on each end. For example, along the underside, Kovalev has continued a groove in the bamboo through the briar of the transition, seamlessly marrying the two otherwise disparate mediums. In the same way, the base of the saddle stem has been frilled — like the flaring cuffs of some poet's blouse — to perfectly align with the end of the shank extension. It's subtle features like this that make Roman's work so unique and attractive, not to mention his engineering skill, evidenced here in the steel tenon and hand-carved boxwood nodes accenting the bamboo.