Werner Mummert: Sandblasted Deco Bulldog Tobacco Pipe

Though Werner Mummert may be something of an enigma, as it's nigh impossible to find any personal information about the man online, the German artisan certainly wears his inspirations on his sleeve, especially in the case of this Deco Bulldog. While, yes, it is immediately apparent that this piece is influenced by the Art Deco movement, it also draws inspiration from Brutalist architecture, emphasizing and even slightly exaggerating the firm, structural lines of the classic shape to great effect. Said Brutalist shaping is iconic to Mummert's signature Bulldogs, and his nigh-monolithic use of sharp lines serves to put the shaping of these pipes on full display. Of course, nowhere are these lines more readily apparent than at the shank, its diamond shape featuring ridges on either flank, the top, and the bottom. The iconic nature of this profile and its historical provenance to the pipe world means that it has been tweaked and altered many times by many different people, but what Werner does with his I find particularly engaging. The pair of ridges that line the flanks, rather than dissipating into the bowl, instead wrap upward into the flanks of the bowl and curve down at the fore, outlining the sharp heel extremely well before they both shoot back toward the shank.

The bowl is a robust, upright affair that takes on a subtle flare as it reaches toward the rim, creating a ridge just below its easy slope toward the chamber, making the flare the main component of its construction. That being said, it retains some of the classic elements of the shape that we're used to seeing on more commonly seen imaginings, as this slope is ringed by a pair of beadlines near its outside edge, calling back to the Anglo-French shape chart standard and ensuring that the slope is not lost in the composition. The Art Deco inspiration comes in the form of an extremely unique style of stain, here dressing a soft sandblast, which consists of swirling hues of varying colors, including red, green, black, and yellow.