Terra incognita

28 March 2018

The term was first used at the time Benedict Goes wrote his The intriguing design of tobacco pipes. In the 1990’s little was known about pipes of alternative types of lacquered ceramics as developed in Ruhla (Thüringen, Germany) and surrounding places. In the meantime we collected an number of interesting examples to illustrate their diversity. This album presents a small series. Eye-catching are the bright colours in which they are executed, especially red was popular. Quite a few of these pipes were adorned with gilding. Also the addition of a ceramic lid was popular, although most of them got lost because of these fragility. Altogether this material deserves our attention for its specific shaping and colourful finish.

Moving smoking pipes in metal

21 March 2018

It took a while but on the first spring day we moved the Van Tienhoven-Van Ewijk collection to Amsterdam, probably the largest collection of metal smoking pipes in the world. For those who are not familiar: Felix and Wijntje van Tienhoven traveled around the world for decades and collected scent bottles as well as smoking pipes. Both passed away in 2016 a few months after each other. The two collections found a dignified accommodation in museums, the first in the ethnographical museum in Leiden, the second in the Amsterdam Pipe Museum. We are very grateful to Felix and Wijntje for this legacy. Because the focus of their collection was mainly on metal, the majority of the material is a welcome addition to our current museum collection. A series of unique objects will be on view as a temporary exhibition for a number of months soon. Later a special showcase for the most representative items from this collection will be set up in the hall of our museum.