Sandblasted Long Shank Tomato with Horn (50/18) Tobacco Pipe

Combining Danish and Swedish shaping cues, aspects of Industrial minimalism, and his own personal aesthetic, Chris Asteriou presents us with this stunning Tomato. The long shank contributes to much of the piece's overall length and calls to mind a convention often seen in the work of Lars Ivarsson. Chris has tapered the shank considerably towards the transition, more so than Lars tended to, which also lends the profile an Industrial Design sense of sleekness, with the bowl poised at the end. The bowl, squat and forward urging, hews closer to the style of Bo Nordh, though, compared to the more rotund, Danish iterations.

In true Chris fashion, the piece's underside features a crisp heel spur, just below the transition, that accentuates the design's streamlined nature and clean lines. The Greek carver has placed the spur in the perfect spot too; any further forward and it would have disrupted the bowl's fore-most curve, but positioned further back and the spur would be an unwelcome nuisance within the shank's clean-lined underside. Dressed in a glossy, dark sandblast, the finish represents Chris's penchant for more traditional, understated color palettes and is here fitted with a wedding band of extra-dark horn at the shank end, providing a sense of visual texture rather than a contrasting flash of color. Sublime work all around.