Sam Cui: Smooth Acorn with Boxwood Tobacco Pipe

Chinese artisan Sam Cui has always been inspired by the natural world and nature's organic forms, focusing on these aspects of his surroundings in his photography, and imbuing the aesthetics of his pipe-making style with the same. Cui often crafts pipes of an impressively compact stature, and this Acorn is an excellent example of that fashion, coming in at just slightly over four and a half inches long, though it maintains an ample heartiness in hand. The transition is tight and parabolic, giving way to a curling shank that flares gently in profile to meet a ringed junction accent of pale boxwood, marking the shank's pairing to a sleek saddle stem of black vulcanite. From the smoker's perspective, the shank is extremely compressed, especially at the transition, and the flare's subtlety from the flanks becomes much more expressive: creating a varied look that enhances the lively nature of this piece. On the middle-left flank of the shank, a ridgeline manifests and curls down and through the briar, rising into the transition and continuing just a bit into the bowl, maintaining the walls' supple plumpness while developing a subtle implied line on the left side. The walls themselves are delightfully comfortable in hand, flaring to a high-set waist and arcing to a chamfered rim, reminiscent of its namesake nut. There's an understated asymmetry through the shank and stem that sees the combination slightly offset against the bowl, mainly thanks to the ridgeline through the left side of the shank: magnifying the organic aspects of the composition. Dressed in a warm, rich stain, the stummel showcases handsome grain throughout, with a wrapping band of cross grain through the middle and vast plains of birdseye across the flanks.