Ser Jacopo: Picta Picasso Spongia Rusticated Paneled Acorn with Silver (R2) (C) (26) Tobacco Pipe

Founded in 1982 by Giancarlo Guidi, Ser Jacopo has built a reputation on crafting high-quality briars that are renowned for their robust proportions and playful shaping cues. The Italian atelier's style has since defined the Pesaro style of pipe making, each of their pipes imbued with a sense of character and reflecting the whimsical creativity that went into crafting them. Though Guidi passed away in 2012, his legacy lives on not only in the pipes he crafted, or the company he founded, but in the language of design that he helped to pioneer. Taking inspiration from the works of famous artists such as René Magritte, Pablo Picasso, and Joan Miro, the Picta line from Italian Workshop Ser Jacopo comprises several collections of artistically informed pipes. This "26" is based on Pablo Picasso's 1968 work Musketeer with Pipe, and it boasts a unique outline that's suffused with a slender sensibility by way of its willowy shank extension. The shank itself is a swift taper of briar whose underside follows the angle of the pronounced heel before meeting a bulbous black accent fitted to a lengthy white acrylic extension reminiscent of vintage pipes paired to albatross bones. A trim saddle stem marries to the end of this extension, the resulting reach of the combination doing well to balance the visual weight of the more full-bodied bowl. The bowl itself sits atop a strikingly pointed heel that juts out, chin-like, at the fore of the composition, supporting stout walls that are rounded with eight panels and topped with a domed rim. Dressing the stummel here is a craggy rustication and warm stain, contrasted nicely by smooth briar at the rim and the vibrant white of the shank extension.