Smooth Light Bent Billiard (Three Jellyfish) Tobacco Pipe

From a young age, Italian artisan Simone Gaudenzi has always been drawn to pipes and holds a longstanding appreciation for their rich history as both works of art and as functional objects embedded within the deeply personal ritual of smoking. A pipe smoker since his early adulthood, Guadenzi wouldn't join the world of pipe making until 1998, when he began working under the mentorship of Giancarlo Guidi at the famed Ser Jacopo workshop. It was here that he developed a keen eye for design and a deep appreciation for the Pesaro style, which his own portfolio demonstrates today. Gaudenzi's work also includes plenty of homage to his other great passion: the sea. The artisan took a break from pipe making for quite a while to work in a shipyard, but he returned to the Ser Jacopo workshop in 2014, and went on to carve pipes for several different brands before establishing own. He has named his own brand Valbruna after the legendary submerged city that's rumored to lie somewhere off the coast of his hometown — an Italian Atlantis of sorts. Moreover, the Valbruna grading system is also heavily influenced by the aquatic, with each piece stamped with a certain number of jellyfish to denote its size and quality, and some earning the Calypso or Atlantis designation.

With its three-jellyfish grade, this bent Billiard is a handsome offering from Valbruna in terms of both grain and shaping, which coalesce quite harmoniously thanks to Gaudenzi's skilled hand. Overall, this is a lithe, graceful piece, yet it still holds to the bowl-centric conventions of the Italian neoclassical style. The bowl boasts a chamber depth of nearly two inches, and a taut, muscular heel. From said heel, the walls billow gently as they ascend to a plateau-crowned rim, maintaining a narrow profile overall. A subtly tapering shank joins the bowl at a low-set, softly cheeked transition out back, and is in turn met by a long, subtly bent saddle stem that promotes a relaxed smoking posture. Hearty tendrils of flame grain streak the flanks of the shank and climb the walls of the bowl, while curlicues of birdseye swirl around the top of the shank and the underside of the stummel. These lovely grain patterns are accentuated by a light, smooth finish, which provides an excellent backdrop for the bowl's dark crown of plateau to really pop.