Nanna Ivarsson: Sandblasted Blowfish (4221) Tobacco Pipe

The Blowfish shape — as Nanna and the Ivarssons have called it — is an artisan design rooted in the Danish pipe-making tradition. Pioneered by Lars Ivarsson, the Blowfish is marked by a rounded bowl with a flanking ridgeline traversing the shank, and Lars' daughter Nanna has continued to elevate the form through her myriad renditions. Because of its broadly defined characteristics, the Blowfish lends itself well to creative interpretations, and many artisans in Denmark and around the world have contributed distinctive renditions of the design to the catalog of global artisan pipe making. That said, Nanna's remain among the most famed and collected, her sense of artistry merging with exemplary engineering to create some of the most prized pipes available today.

Across her portfolio, Nanna's Blowfish designs range from compact and tightly curled to stretched and long-shanked, from those with gradually flaring shanks to those with shanks that twist and curl. Among her signature renditions, the Sleeping Blowfish features a shank that curls forward to connect to the back of the bowl — as if a fish were curled up in the same manner as a sleeping cat or dog. Such a design has become emblematic of Nanna's style, and other carvers, like Dasha Florov, have honored Ivarsson with their own interpretations of the Sleeping Fish. By contrast, Nanna's Waking Blowfish, an example of which we received previously, features an active and lively shank that flows and meanders like the tail of its sprightly namesake.

This particular Blowfish rendition falls somewhere between those two Sleeping and Waking versions: The shank is somewhat ovoid, and it begins to curl toward the bowl but remains rather reserved and symmetrical in its shaping. Instead of ridgelines along the flanks, Nanna has instead crafted trim panels that connect along the top of the shank face before curving down along the underside and halting at the transition. Furthermore, they're finished smooth for added visual contrast. These panels then dissipate into subtle ridges along the lower bowl, continuing the panels' trajectory but seamlessly disappearing into the bowl's sandblast. The distinctive ridgelines (or in this case, panels) of the Fish shape are among the most creatively diverse aspects of the design, with carvers varying the lines trajectory and terminus. Sometimes the ridges travel all the way to the rim for a strong, firm-lined aspect; other times, as Nanna as opted for here, the lines soften at the lower bowl or transition, emphasizing the bowl's rounded curves and drawing further contrast against the more structured shank.

That softness is amplified here by this pipe's consistent undercurve, the implied continuation forming a near perfect circle in the negative space above the composition. Such exacting line work is a notable feature of Nanna's work, and in this piece, the curves accentuate the pipe's fluid demeanor and forward dynamism in profile. The stem supports this forward momentum, too, with a subtle downward turn counteracting the shank's arc and an angled stem base that mirrors the shank's lines and leads into the stummel's forward posture. Meticulously sandblasted, the stummel's low-profile texture maintains the shape's silhouette, and the smooth, chamfered rim offers tasteful contrast while complementing the shank's panels for compositional harmony.