Lasse Skovgaard: Smooth Bent Egg Tobacco Pipe

As the son of Danish artisan Benni Jørgensen, Lasse Skovgaard spent much of his early life around pipes and pipe making, and this early exposure proved to be foundational to how he would approach the craft. At the age of just 16, Skovgaard began working at the esteemed W.Ø. Larsen workshop, where he started out by carving buffalo horn tampers. By 18, he was fashioning the workshop's Select Grain pipes, and not long after that, he was carving Larsen's Straight Grain pieces. Seeing the young carver's abilities, Teddy Knudsen encouraged Skovgaard to make pipes under his own name. Skovgaard did, and after selling out two years in a row at the Chicago Pipe Show, he began his artisan career.

The bent Egg is a shape Skovgaard has returned to repeatedly, and it perfectly showcases the Danish carver's penchant for fluid curves and bold, muscular proportions. This particular example features a tall, plump bowl perched at the fore of a sinuously bent shank-and-stem arrangement. The arrangement's upward reach lends the overall form a gestural curvature that captures the eye in profile. The bowl's softy contoured walls offer a delightful in-hand fit, one that's both voluptuous and welcoming, while a ridgeline along one side of the shank provides a touch of structure to the shape's otherwise languid build. A warm auburn smooth finish dresses the stummel and highlights fine strands of flame grain as they flow across the bowl's flanks to a chamfered rim flecked with birdseye.