Smooth Bent Egg with Bamboo Tobacco Pipe

A slender, sweeping, and lithe presentation, this bent Egg from Johannes Rasmussen of Suhr mixes modern aesthetics with earlier pipemaking cues. The bowl and shank are clearly modern, the bowl canted slightly forward, its waistline low and a bit more defined than is usual for Eggs. The rim is slightly angled forward, itself contributing to the impression of forward momentum. The bamboo shank reveals three knuckles and is a modern element, but here it reflects the remarkably slender proportions of earlier decades in a pencil-shank rendition that leads to a long, saddle mouthpiece with a restrained curve. The bowl is in cross-grain orientation, the grain running horizontally across the flanks with birdseye centered fore and aft. An impressively low transition seems to emerge from the heel with its reduced dimensions helping bring visual attention back to the bowl. Looking like a pipe one might see a hobbit or elf smoking, it mixes imagination and reality for a practical smoker with one foot in the realm of fantasy.