Souvenir painting on a wooden shoe

April 2011

When the mystery pipe was developed in Gouda around 1910, this more luxurious pipe offers new opportunities for design, more related to briar and meerschaum pipes. This gave way to pipe shapes that never have been designed before. This wonderful souvenir pipe shaped as the typical Dutch wooden shoe dates from that period. A remarkable creation in terms of functionality because the inner bowl has a odd shape where a part of the tobacco can never be reached by the fire. That such a strange design gives the smoker a rather bizarre silhouette was apparently no problem but at least a unique selling point. Finally, over the top is the decoration of this pipe in a Delft blue palette. Typical Delft blue flowers are all around the clog, while a simple cartouche even depicts a mill on the top of the wooden shoe. The maker is the Ivora Plateelbakkerij, previously known as P. van der Want Gzn. from the Kuipersteeg in Gouda. Thanks to a stamped marking on the stem ferrule we can make that attribution.

Amsterdam Pipe Museum APM 20.433

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