Bruno Nuttens: Handmade Smooth Twiggy with Horn (A) Tobacco Pipe

Though he was born in Belgium, Bruno Nuttens calls France home, moving there after attending university to study literature. In 2012, Nuttens purchased a collection of old estate pipes with the intent to keep only one, however, he thought it would be a terrible waste to dispense with the rest. To avoid this waste, Nuttens began restoring the pipes, leading to a career as a respected and prolific pipe restorer, reviving over 7,000 pipes in the proceeding six years and becoming intimately familiar with their craftsmanship while acquiring an eye for artistic shaping. After being inducted into the Confrérie des Maîtres Pipiers de Saint-Claude in 2013, Nuttens began making pipes, inspired and assisted by fellow inductee Pierre Morel. Bruno continued to restore pipes over the next few years, making pipes as a side business until 2018, when he refocused to carve them full-time. Later bolstered by instruction from Tom Eltang, Nuttens has made a name for himself as a maker of high-quality pieces that draw inspiration from the French, Danish, and German schools of carving.

Among Nuttens' numerous lines, the Handmade series comprises his best work, being carved and finished completely by hand and showcasing Nuttens' more artistic style. The Twiggy is a signature shape from the French artisan, one he's crafted many times in the past, and it's one of the most overtly Danish shapes that he carves regularly. What's immediately striking about this pipe is the disparity between the fore and aft, with the bowl taking on a majority of the visual weight here, though not in an expressly neoclassical style. Instead, the bowl takes on a sharp-heeled, Pickaxe-like outline that flares out from its pointed base to a curving, dynamic rim: creating a unique outline reminiscent of the Dublin. The shank here is remarkably slim, ebbing out of the wide transition with a slight lift and a defined taper toward the tapered stem, resulting in a slender, gracile look whose construction is delightfully aerodynamic. Finished in a dark, rich smooth finish and graded A, this pipe showcases handsome grain throughout, with birdseye present across the rim: the rich stain of the briar contrasted nicely by a band of horn at the shank end.