Sandblasted Bent Dublin with Bamboo, Boxwood, and Cinnabar (2025) Tobacco Pipe

Drawing on shaping cues both Danish and Chinese, Chinese artisan Lv Zelong crafts pipes with a meticulous attention to detail, imbuing each work with a superb functionality. He is known for his vibrant finish work and unique accents, as seen in this pipe. A gorgeous, truly one-of-a-kind work of craftsmanship, the pipe demonstrates Zelong's mastery of the craft. This bent Dublin is an organic rendering of the shape, with a plump, undulating rim lush with tightly nested fractals of whorling birdseye. Zelong has shaped the bowl to show off stunning rays of straight grain that guides the eye directly from the uplifted heel into said rim. The sweeping, parabolic shape of the transition combined with the softened edge of the heel lends the stummel a Horn-like elegance. It's been done in such an organic fashion that the expansion of the stummel from the bamboo shank extension into the rim can best be described as blooming, sprouting even.

Concerning the aforementioned bamboo, Zelong shows off his superior attention to detail with additional accents. It is common for artisans to fill in the larger nodes on a stretch of bamboo, as Zelong has done to this pipe, using Cinnabar. However, he's demonstrated an exceedingly painstaking degree of rigor by using resin to fill in each every one of the tiny nodes encircling each of the bamboo's three knuckles. Such minutiae are not immediately evident in the photo, but in person, they add a glistening liveliness to the pipe. Additional evidence of Zelong's highly conscientious style of work is the precise finish work. Not only has he included the boxwood ferrule's face in his attentions, but the contrast stain and subtle sandblast dressing the majority of the stummel is outstanding. This contrast stain works really well to define the birdseye on the rim, which he has left smooth, and it pairs perfectly with the cinnabar in the bamboo.

– Aysia Walton