Ser Jacopo: Smooth Bent Dublin (L2) (A) (Maxima) 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. This bent Dublin is part of the workshop's Maxima series, being stamped a single time with the designation, marking it as a larger piece than normal from the Pesaro carvers. A sinuous composition that's thoroughly curved from stem to rim, this bent Dublin is exceptionally thick, its tight transition giving way to a chubby shank that lifts and tapers through into the stem. Up front, the bowl stands atop a sweeping heel and grows thick, flaring walls up to a broad rim, offering a robust feel in hand and a capacious chamber. Wearing one of Ser Jacopo's light, honey-blonde smooth stains, the stummel here showcases fine flickers of flame grain around the bowl's circumference, with plenty of birdseye to appreciate at the rim.