Boileau in mean colours

May 2020

Certain pipe designs are highly valued by their expressive portrayal and monumentality. This applies, for example, to the portrait pipe known as Boileau, which the French company Gambier designed somewhere before the year 1840. With its sympathetic historical appearance and exciting, slightly sideways looking head, this is a successful creation that has been in circulation for generations. It is not surprising that other factories are trying to profit from such a successful design. A German porcelain maker copied the original design of Boileau without any change, but in a different raw material. Using the mysterious Parian ware, the maker tries to do justice to the sculptural aspect of the pipe. The fine marble-like porcelain is extremely suitable for imitating scuptures and busts. Unfortunately, the manufacturer has not thought that a tobacco pipe has, in addition to the aesthetic side, the user aspect. Every smoker can imagine that porcelain can never succeed because the material does not absorb moisture so that the pipe smokes hot. In addition, the product is single-walled, creating unexpected parts in the bowl where the tobacco does not burn. A remarkable feature of this pipe is the finish in a multi-coloured painting. The artificial plum mouth and the blushes on the poet's cheeks make the poet effemanate rather than toughThe wonderful black wig shows an unexpected and, above all, misunderstood ornament on the back of the head.

Amsterdam Pipe Museum APM 23.923

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