Il Duca: Sandblasted Morta Billiard (B) Tobacco Pipe

Max Rimensi, the skilled carver behind Il Duca pipes, enjoys a reputation for being able to easily shift between the various schools of design, imbuing classic shapes with a re-imagined, more contemporaneous aesthetic, be it through stem material, design, or accent. Additionally, the Italian artisan prides himself in producing precisely engineered, highly functional smoking instruments built for durability and enjoyment.

Plump and shapely, this morta Billiard from the Italian artisan features refined proportions for an elegant, minimalist disposition. In recent memory, many of Rimensi's Billiard designs have favored extremely slim shanks that offer a very slender outline, placing nearly all of the visual weight on the bowl. This pipe not only show's his proclivity and talent for working with morta, but also the versatility of his carving styles, as the proportions here are more closely in line with the Anglo-French style of pipe making. Streamlined and straight, it's a testament to the Italian artisan's deft shaping skills and engineering, especially with regard to the shape of the bowl, whose walls take on a good bit of curvature as they rise, lending it a rotund, Apple-like look. Wearing a dark sandblast that accentuates the morta's unique and myriad grain patterns, it's topped by a hand-cut vulcanite mouthpiece in vibrant, brindled hues for a modern, complementing palette.