J Mouton Smooth Prince w/ Horn & Silver 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.

The prince has made quite a comeback in recent years. No longer merely confined to the factory line, it has instead, like the poker and the cutty, become an object of functionalist fascination for a number of artisans in the contemporary handmades scene. One of these artisans is Chris Asteriou, an early mentor of J. Mouton, though if you’ve seen Mouton’s other interpretations of Anglo-French staples, such as the aforementioned poker, you’ll have known that any princes he made would be made in his own, unique way. This one is certainly a very striking design. On the one hand, it has the long, slender, princely proportions of the 20th century staple, including a general lightness and grace. On the other, there’s a clear admixture of Danish elements to Mouton’s creation, from its subtly plump bowl to the construction of its military mount and stem. Mouton’s use of a horn ferrule, stabilized with an integral sterling silver ring, along with his choice of a flared ebonite stem, is highly evocative of the pipes of 1950s and ’60s Denmark, most famously those of Sixten Ivarsson—as is, of course, the decision not to stray too far from tradition. Applying this treatment to the prince, however, is much more contemporary.

 

Details:

Length: 6.6″ / 167.6mm

Bowl Width: 0.84 / 21.33mm

Bowl Depth: 1.13″ / 28.70mm

Weight: 1.4oz / 40g