Ser Jacopo Picta Van Gogh 13 Rusticated Poker Estate Briar Pipe, Italian Estates

Description

Ser Jacopo is likely the most famous contemporary example of high-grade, workshop-made Italian pipes. It also belongs to a very special tradition in Italian pipe-making, having been established by Giancarlo Guidi and Bruno Sordini after the two had left another great Italian workshop, Mastro de Paja. Together, Guidi and Sordini created a brand of pipes that reflected their Renaissance sensibilities – even the figurehead of Ser Jacopo happens to be taken from a painting of a nobleman from centuries past – one that would soon become esteemed for creating unique and beautiful tobacco pipes that smoked just as well as they looked.

Ser Jacopo pipes are art. This is difficult to deny, as they are, after all, typically beautiful, sometimes strange, but always aesthetically enjoyable works of human imagination. Founder Giancarlo Guidi himself was a also graduate of an art school. But some Ser Jacopo pipes have another connection to the art world, as their designs are representations of pipes seen in the masterworks of the great European painters: Pablo Picasso, Joan Miró, René Magritte, and so on. The Picta Van Gogh series is exactly the same, with each shape having been liberally interpreted in the form of a pipe that is to be smoked. This one is based on Van Gogh’s 1888 oil painting, Le Fumeur (sometimes mistaken for a pencil drawing due to the happenstances of digital reproduction), which depicts a man in a hat, smoking a short, barrel-like pipe. Van Gogh’s smoker is likely sporting a clay, whereas Ser Jacopo’s is in the medium they know best—briar. This Picta model also features some more “upmarket” sterling silver finery not present in the source. It is a Ser Jacopo, after all.

-J.M.

The condition is great. Some very light rim darkening.

 

Details:

Length: 5.2″ / 132.0mm

Bowl Width: 0.76 / 19.30mm

Bowl Depth: 1.28″ / 32.51mm

Weight: 1.9oz / 54g