Woman with cornucopia

January 2011

This early figural pipe shows along the stem a naked woman who embraces a ribbed cornucopia. It is a remarkable representation because the modeling is extremely primitive, but touching at the same time. The woman is shown to her knees, as it were, rises from four long pointed leaves that have been applied as a stem decoration. The stem end itself is flattened and without a knot which characteristic indicates a very early date for this figure pipe, perhaps even in the 1820s or 1830s. Another evidence of the early dating is the production in a two-part mould. Later such a complicated figure would have been made with a multi-part pipe mould, so that the details could be more refined. In accordance with the customs at the Belgian and French pipe factories, the result was embellished with accents in enamel paint. This is what happened here, albeit rather primitively: the white enamel is so thick and syrupy that the details of the woman have completely disappeared. In fact, the glaze hides the sexy naked woman, which the smoker would really like to see in detail.

Amsterdam Pipe Museum APM 20.411

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