Sandblasted Billiard with Horn Tobacco Pipe

Chinese carver Ping Zhan makes some beautiful shapes, most organically inclined, with a careful eye for every detail — from a soft, subtle asymmetry to a fluid use of line. His classics follow a similar path, this straight Billiard showing off that same soft, precise shaping technique, to bring out the very best of what the shape has to offer. Indeed, the combination of easy grace, a crisp sandblast, smooth and contrast-stained rim, and horn mount all make for a piece that brings to mind some of the traditional pipes of old, though refined through the lens of a skilled carver, whose entire focus is on creating an archetypal example of the shape. Brilliant work.