J Mouton Chantilly Grade Arne Jacobsen Handmade Briar Pipe, New

Description

Born and raised in the small town of Gueydan, Louisana, Jay Mouton is an American artisan who works under the moniker of J. Mouton. Having crafted duck calls since he was a teenager, Mouton’s first forays into pipe-making began with carving tampers. Mouton’s unexpected successes with these handmade tampers allowed him to purchase the equipment necessary to create the pipes themselves. Studying the works of renowned American artisans such as J. Alan, Grant Batson, and Jared Coles, Mouton gradually developed his own pipe-making craft, which was furthered by his exchanges with Greek artisan Chris Asteriou.

What’s in a name? There are several pipe shapes whose name derives, in some way or another, from an individual. The “Bo,” or “Bo Pot,” for example, derives from the idiosyncratic pot shapes of Swedish pipe-maker Bo Nordh; the “Bing” comes not from a maker but a famous smoker of pipes, in particular his long, slender billiard-style shapes. The Arne, or Arne Jacobsen, is a little different, or perhaps is somewhere in between. Jacobsen was an architect and design pioneer, being most associated with the Scandinavian functionalist movement. He was also somewhat famous for smoking a pipe. But he did not make pipes. Instead, the pipes that he favored and his approach to other areas of design were brought together in the minds of pipe-makers, who paid tribute to Jacobsen by way of the “Arne” shape. These pipe-makers included Tom Eltang, a great admirer of Jacobsen’s functionalism and who gave the Arne its name, but there have subsequently been many interpretations and reinterpretations of the shape, some sticking close to Eltang’s, and others moving in different directions. This Arne, from Louisiana’s J. Mouton, is an example of the latter. It stays close to the slightly-canted, pencil-shank stack shapes seen in iconic photographs of Jacobsen, while also leaning further into the function-before-form ethos of Jacobsen’s career through its stripped-down shaping and overall lightness. On the other hand, Mouton’s Arne hasn’t abandoned aesthetic considerations wholesale – far from it, in fact. The pipe features a perfect spread of tightly-woven bird’s-eye grain patterns, sufficient to attain Mouton’s highest “Chantilly” grade qualification, which glisten beneath a golden-brown stain.

 

Details:

Length: 6″ / 152.4mm

Bowl Width: 0.71 / 18.03mm

Bowl Depth: 1.75″ / 44.45mm

Weight: 1.1oz / 32g