Werner Mummert: Sandblasted Hawkbill with Glow-in-the-Dark Resin Tobacco Pipe

Enigmatic German artisan Werner Mummert crafts some of the most distinctive profiles in all of modern pipe design, with an incredibly broad stylistic range that draws influence from architecture, modern art, and Bauhaus furniture design. Of course, he's also inspired by the various schools of pipe design from around the world as well, so it's only appropriate that he should craft iconic designs from these schools in his own style. Enter this Hawkbill: a shape that has become a signature for Mummert, and one that we've seen before, combining his firm, gestural, sculptural style with a profile made ubiquitous by the Italian tradition of pipe making.

Though the Hawkbill shape is certainly a bit unconventional itself, this rendition further breaks from traditional renderings of the profile by changing the shape of the bowl from that of a thoroughly rounded Ball, to a supple, tapering Brandy. This change affords the bowl a plump, low-set waistline and an arcing taper to the rim, maintaining some lovely contours in the hand while keeping true to the curvaceous build of the shape. The most iconic characteristic of this profile, however, is that of the shank and stem, taking on a languid, aquiline arc from the transition to the button, angling the combination for comfortable smoking and creating a singular silhouette. The shank here ebbs out from a wide, cheeked transition and continues into the heel, its outline plainly seen supporting the heft of the bowl as it cradles the rounded surface there, and the flanks are lined with a firm ridge which dissipates near the middle of its length. The stem here is a trim, saddle affair made from a salmon-hued vulcanite that's been uniquely fitted with an accent band of glow-in-the-dark resin, something we've seldom seen in a pipe, and only once before from Mummert. Dressing the stummel is an extremely craggy, inkily-stained sandblast that reveals rippling ring grain cascading down the stummel in highly textural outcroppings, contrasting the stem's hues strikingly and making for a composition that's thoroughly alluring.