Test pipe by Scholenaar

December 2001

In the nineteenth century father Pieter and son Pieter Gerardus Scholenaar worked in Gouda, the first as silversmith, the second as engraver. On request of the Gouda pipe makers they decorated the brass press moulds by adding engravings. That activity followed the tradition of their predecessors with the same tools that went back to the heyday of pipe industry around 1750. This massive pipe bowl originates from the workshop of son Pieter Scholenaar junior. When he had decorated a pipe mould, he made a massive print in clay to check the result. That print was saved with alle the others and served him as an example for new designs. After his death in 1909, Pieter Goedewaagen donated his archive of several hundred casts to the Gouda Municipal Museum. Unfortunately, those examples were not preserved there, presumably they were thrown away during a clean-up due to lack of knowledge. This specimen comes from the factory inventory of the Koninklijke Goedewaagen pipe works in 1963 and is one of the few remaining examples. The object is of exceptional importance because it learns us which dies were used by the Scholenaar’s. By comparing the ornaments on this pipe bowl with other decorated pipes from the nineteenth century, we can determine whether Scholenaar was the decorator or whether a different mould engraver is the maker. In this way we can group the decorations in order to make better descriptions of the pipes. This is especially important because many pipes from that later period no longer have a maker's mark and cannot be identified in any other way.

Amsterdam Pipe Museum APM 16.394

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