Lasse Skovgaard: Smooth Bent Apple Tobacco Pipe

Being the son of renowned artisan Benni Jørgensen, Lasse Skovgaard is something of a pipe making pedigree, and it was likely expected that he would learn to craft pieces of his own make. As it turns out, that is exactly what he did, joining W.Ø. Larsen at the age of 16 to make horn tampers for the workshop, experimenting with pipe making the entire time, until, at 18, he was brought into the fold of Larsen's carvers. A year later he was working to craft their premiere Straight Grain pieces. In 2004, at the behest of Teddy Knudsen, Skovgaard crafted a number of his own pipes, bringing them with him to the Chicagoland Pipe Show and completely selling out, a feat he accomplished the following year as well, thenceforth focusing exclusively on crafting pipes of his own make.

This bent Apple is a shape we've seen before from Lasse, and features a build that's fairly similar to bent Apples made by his father in the past, something that strikes me as extremely appropriate. The stem here is a demurely curved saddle of black vulcanite that's fitted with an expansion ring at the base, a base which then nestles into a domed flare at the shank face. The negative space that these twin expansions offer draws the eye toward the aft side of this pipe quite well, ensuring that the shaping here isn't lost in the face of the comparatively more broad bowl. In addition, these two areas of growth are stylistically comparative, both slanting rearward and even having nearly matching outlines, keeping the look of this piece quite intentional overall. The shank proper takes on a slight curve as it ebbs out of the wide transition, poising the stem for comfortable smoking, while the transition itself is more than wide enough to allow for comfortable thumb draping. At the fore we find the bowl, its build sitting atop a lifted heel and presenting with a mid-set waistline that enables the fingers to wrap around it easily, possessed of a supple plumpness and a slight forward cant. A vivid honey-auburn stain dresses the briar here, revealing cross grain wrapping around the left flank of the bowl, surrounding a field of birdseye that acts as a smaller sibling to the one showcased on the right.