Cornelius Manz: Smooth Bent Dublin with Horn Tobacco Pipe

Truly remarkable pipemakers aren't just deft craftsmen, they tend to possess an acute eye for design. As for Cornelius Mänz, the German carver seems to be so gifted in terms of both his vision and execution, it's as if he was truly born to make pipes. This dramatic bent Dublin rendition is a brilliant example, presenting as it does a subtle, yet quite playful display of asymmetry about the broad mushroom-like rim.

With a splendidly oriented crown of plateau surrounded by beautiful whorls of birdseye, this piece presents a gentle sense of lifting gesture about the rim's aft, further reinforcing its organic aesthetic, much in the way of the Japanese school. Making use of tight licks of flame to guide the eye to a gently-tucked transition, it leads one naturally to the dark, ever-so-slightly flared horn mount. Cornelius has access to an extremely old stock of French horn, the same used by Eltang and Tsuge Ikebana; the stuff is multiple decades old, meaning it's very dry and very stable. And as you can see here, quite gorgeous as well.