WO Larsen Partially Rusticated Bent Egg Estate Briar Pipe

Description

WO Larsen was a tobacconist in Copenhagen Denmark. In the 1960s, when Danish-style pipes were becoming highly sought after, thanks to revolutionary pipe-makers such as Sixten Ivarsson, a workshop was set up on the Larsen premises to produce enough high-grade Danish pipes to meet demand. This workshop was staffed by the emerging masters of Danish pipe-making, such as Sven and Teddy Knudsen, Hans ‘Former’ Nielsen, Jess Chonowitsch, Poul Ilsted, and Benni Jorgensen.

This Larsen strikes me as being as quintessentially ‘Danish’ as one would expect from the historic Copenhagen workshop, but I will say that it also strikes me as representing the mid-point of an important transition that took place in Danish pipe-making in the 1970s and ’80s (this one looks 1970s to my eye). Note the shape: the bowl is plump and fairly tall, while the shank and stem are more or less pencil thin. In other words, the latter encapsulate the slender, neoclassical approach of the earliest ‘Danish’ pipes, while the former – no pun intended – gestures to what came later. Briar was scarce in the early days of the Danish movement, so lighter, more svelte designs were a necessity; later on, carvers could expand, so to speak, into broader, fuller, and often more post-classical styles, with the ‘egg’ shape emerging as part of the new canon. This one also appears to have been part of Larsen’s ‘Rustic’ line, which blended finishes in a not-dissimilar way.

The condition is excellent. The ebonite stem has been ever so slightly overbuffed at the base, but it’s a minor, purely visual, imperfection.

 

Details:

Length: 5.5″ / 139.7mm

Bowl Width: 0.79 / 20.06mm

Bowl Depth: 1.91″ / 48.51mm

Weight: 1.9oz / 56g