Manduela: Smooth Squat Bulldog with Muskox Horn Tobacco Pipe

Manduela Riger-Kusk came into pipe-making the old way, through a traditional apprenticeship with Poul Ilsted and employment with Pipe-Dan. As you might expect, then, we see a lot of Ilsted inspiration in her work — particularly in her use of panels or facets in her shank and bowl designs. This Squat Bulldog is a striking example not only of this Danish neo-classical aesthetic foundation, but of just how far she's developed her own style from it.

The shank features six separate, faceted planes, each framed by firm, sharp leading lines that speed across the entire composition, even extending all the way along the underside to a crisp spur at the heel. Despite all those planes, hard lines, and smooth faces, it comes across so low-profile in its silhouette that it almost appears lenticular. Like many of her creations, it's a smaller piece, with a chamber perfect for a bit of folded flake. Interestingly enough, though this is one of the more modernist and forward-speeding compositions in this first batch of Manduela pipes, she's actually lent this one one of the more conservative finishes: a warm contrast stain for the stummel, accented only by a bit of muskox horn and jet-black vulcanite.

- Andrew Wike