Anne Julie Rusticated Tulip Estate Briar Pipe, Danish Estates

Description

It’s a cliche, I know, but when I think of Anne Julie I am reminded of the mythical phoenix, rising from the ashes. This is because the impetus for Julie becoming a pipe-maker was tragedy. Her husband, Poul Rasmussen, ran Suhr’s Pipemageri (a Danish word for pipe workshop) in Denmark and was, along with other Suhr’s alumni, such as Peter Brakner, Sixten Ivarsson, and Sven Knudsen, one of the godfathers of the Danish artisan movement in post-war pipe-making. But, in 1967, Poul Rasmussen died suddenly. Julie was left with – among other things – a pipe workshop that she, then not a pipe-maker, did not know what to do with. She thought about simply selling the Suhr’s workshop, as she had to support herself and the child she’d had with Rasmussen. It is only when Hans “Former” Nielsen, who had previously worked at Suhr’s, came to help survey the workshop that the idea of Julie herself becoming a pipe-maker was entertained, and with a little help from Former, this is exactly what happened. Five decades later, Julie is known around the world as one of the greatest living pipe-makers, and indeed one of the greatest pipe-makers to have ever lived.

Flowers are a recurring theme in Danish and post-Danish pipe-making, but nobody utilizes this theme quite like Anne Julie. As can be seen from this, that’s partly because Julie’s pipes blend the boundaries between the kind of figural approaches seen meerschaum and early briar pipes, and the non-figural approaches of modern briars, even when the latter are nature-inspired. A tulip such as this one does not simply emulate the most basic profile of the flower’s bulb, but also captures the textures of petal cellulose and the folding patterns that emerge as one petal tucks between another. This creates another blurred boundary in the form of that between smooth and rusticated finishes. Julie’s floral pipes are smooth, but they are smooth in the way any organism is, in being, at its base, a patchwork of living cells. I’ve opted to categorize this Julie as rusticated, as is the norm, but it’s a category with caveats – the kind of challenge to conventions that the Danes and their progeny have always excelled at raising.

The condition is great, but I will highlight the rim. It could be quite darkened at the back, or it could have some finish fading at the front, or it could be intentionally like that. The pipe doesn’t seem to have been smoked much at all, which is why I’m unable to say conclusively what the rim should look like. I will let buyers decide for themselves on that, based on the pictures provided.

 

Details:

Length: 6″ / 152.4mm

Bowl Width: 0.74 / 18.79mm

Bowl Depth: 1.23″ / 31.24mm

Weight: 1.4oz / 40g