Ping Zhan: Smooth Chubby Blowfish Tobacco Pipe

While compact lengths and dynamic lines have come to define Ping Zhan's signature Fugu-style Chubby Blowfish, here he's taken a particularly Cubist approach to the form, swapping out the design's iconic disc-like, convex panels for harder ridges and a number of additional facets around the bowl. The left flank, for example, features a dividing ridge flowing down from the rim, separating it into two distinctive planes. Along the right, you'll find a similar theme, although less pronounced, creating a more traditional look when viewed from that side of the profile. While one would think adding more panels and facets around the bowl might interfere with how comfortable a pipe feels in hand, here Ping's actually created the opposite effect — keeping the fluting lines fairly soft and the various planes convex to produce an almost Apple-like feel when gripped. What's more, like all of Ping's designs, the grain here is simply stunning, with each of the piece's various panels serving as a three-dimensional canvas on which to showcase birdseye and crossgrain alike. Recommended.

- Andrew Wike