Tsuge Ikebana: Smooth Freehand (Kikuchi) (L) (009) (2025) Tobacco Pipe

Tsuge's Ikebana workshop is the artisan offshoot of the esteemed Japanese marque, comprising three renowned carvers who each present a unique shaping style and design outlook in every pipe they make. The pieces they create are often referred to as the "flowers of the pipe world," and this is a fitting appellation, as their namesake, "Ikebana," literally translates as "living flowers" and references the highest echelon of Japanese flower arrangement. Asami Kikuchi is the youngest of the three artisans, and this Freehand piece is a fantastic example of her talent, one that immediately echoes the workshop's namesake art form by virtue of its unapologetically floral outline.

The transition here is fairly tight, though it maintains enough room to drape a digit if necessary, and it features a unique style of pseudo-cheeking that calls to mind the iconic separation of bowl and shank seen in the rare Ball and Cup shape. This essentially manifests as a stylized shank edge that's been raised and sharpened, starting on the right side of the transition and curling down and around the heel before rising across the right fore wall and dissipating near the middle of the bowl. Such shaping creates an eye-catching asymmetry and alters the position of the heel depending on which flank the pipe is viewed from, with the right side's rounded outline oriented toward the fore, while the left's firm edge sits directly under the transition. From out of this transition, a thick shank curls and rises with a slight flare to a domed face whose edges are rounded by their own ridgeline, matching the pointed look of the stem's firm expansion ring: highlighting the negative space at this pipe's junction and balancing the visual weight nicely.

Up front, the bowl assumes an expressive flare out of its heel, the walls rising with an impressive curvature toward a broad, high-set waistline that easily fills out the contours of the hand for a comfortable smoking experience. A strikingly stylized rim presides over the walls, showcasing an undulating outline that rises, crests, and plunges with dramatic grace while its interior assumes a deep chamfer into the capacious chamber. The look of the rim combines with the curling ridge at the transition to instantly conjure thoughts of a flower's petals just as they are beginning to open, as if the briar itself were blooming under Kikuchi's touch, blossoming into a robust, full-bodied pipe whose style is nothing short of stunning. The stummel here has been dressed in a deep, rich, mahogany-toned stain that unveils dense striations of flame grain surrounding the shank and wrapping around the bowl, while the broad rim acts as a basin for a swirling sea of birdseye.