Leaders, Luminaries, and Legends—Real and Imagined—Commemorated on Pipes
Exclusive to pipedia.org
Introduction
It’s pretty much a universal custom that certain people of importance, while alive or soon after passing, are honored and, depending on the country, tradition, desire, or norm, that expression of remembrance might be a statue, a school, street, or park named for that person, or a tree planted. For some in this country, often it’s a coin (Lincoln penny, George Washington quarter), a stamp (John Quincy Adams, Davey Crockett, Hank Aaron), a day of commemoration and memorialization (Martin Luther King Jr.), a Presidential Library.
For others, it might only be a tobacco pipe or a cigar holder. Having your face carved onto either can be considered significant, particularly in historical contexts, as it often represents a personalized item associated with a specific person, potentially signifying status, political affiliation, or even a form of personal branding, especially if the pipe is from a time when smoking was widely prevalent. In the several centuries of pipe making, those who made pipes in clay, wood, porcelain, or meerschaum seem to have idolized kings and queens, political leaders, generals, and the occasional hero or heroine of fiction. In that desire to elevate their stature or, in some small way, ensure their posterity, a pipe or a cheroot holder was crafted with his or her portrait in clay, meerschaum or wood. In porcelain, the image would be in the form of a decal appliquéd on the pipe bowl.
As I had written elsewhere, “Inspiration and ideas for the turner, carver, moulder and painter came from everywhere: victory and defeat in battle; the birth, marriage, and death of royalty; mythology; heroes and heroines; the hunt; art, music, and literature; political figures; landmarks; the trades and professions; religion; fairy tales and legends; and ordinary life.”
Idealized or idolized, such pipes are a visible, tangible link between a pipe and a personality, past or present, to be celebrated, commemorated, honored, memorialized, preserved, recalled, reverenced, or venerated. Some were exacting renditions but, when it comes to portraying mythic figures, for example, Bacchus, the Roman God of agriculture, fertility and wine, the Gallic king Vercingetorix, or Gambrinus, the King of Beer on a pipe bowl—and there were many—the image was always the result of the artist’s imagination, guided by a painting or a pen and ink sketch from a book. The concept is still alive and well today. I have included a few contemporary pipes to demonstrate this. Artists often infused their own features or styles into their work, consciously or unconsciously. This can create a similarity between the artist and the subject, especially if the artist has a distinctive style or approach to facial features. To be clear, this story is not about pipes in art, e.g., smokers painted by Vincent van Gogh, Paul Cezanne, Gustave Courbet, Claude Monet, Frans van Mieris and many others. Those portraits appear in at least three books: Luigi Salerno, Tabacco e Fuma Nella Pittura (1954), Enrico D’Anna, Tabacco Storia Arte (1983), and Flip Bool et al., Rookgordjnen. Roken in de kunsten (2003). This narrative is about art in pipes.
Clay
“Anthropomorphic clay tobacco pipes, also sometimes called figural pipes or face pipes, were a popular type of commemorative souvenir in the nineteenth century. Pipe manufacturers often made pipes depicting the faces of famous political and cultural figures including George Washington, Queen Victoria, and Charlotte Bronte [Brontë] among many others. Although some of the pipes included in this category are more commemorative in nature, such as those of George Washington, most President pipes were made and distributed during presidential campaigns in the United States in the mid-nineteenth century” (Pfeiffer et al 2006). One such pipe featuring the likeness of Franklin Pierce, the 14th President of the United States, was recovered in 1994 from excavations at the Wing of Offices near the main house at Poplar Forest” (Max Bell, “Collecting American Face Pipes,” Bottles and Extras, 2004, 52-54).
Jean Gambier was, without doubt, the most famous and the most prolific maker of figural clay tobacco pipes, with some 120 moulds of heads, such as Queen Victoria, Rembrandt van Rijn, Napoleon, Victor Hugo, Niccolò Paganini and other notables. (See “Gambier,” pipedia.org.) In the late Michael A. Pfeiffer et al. article, “President Pipes: Origin and Distribution” (2007), he mentions that clay pipes were made in the likeness of William Henry Harrison, Franklin Pierce, Millard Fillmore, James Buchanan, and Abraham Lincoln. Bust pipes were also made in the likeness of William McKinley, William Jennings Bryan, Theodore Roosevelt, and William Howard Taft. On the pipemuseum.nl website, there are clay pipe bowls in the likeness of Grover Cleveland, Napoleon III, Leopold II and others.
- Examples in Clay
Franklin Pierce, archaeology.uark.edu
William Howard Taft, lebonheurvintage.com
French clay pipe mocking the Duke of Wellington, courtesy, ageofrevolution.org
Meerschaum
Personages of note were more likely to be carved onto meerschaum pipes, not so much because they were famous, but because the 1800s were a more romantically-inspired era for the carvers. The most famous of these is the series of Presidential busts in meerschaum produced by the William Demuth Company in New York. See “Demuth Collection of Presidents of United States in Meerschaum” (Tobacco, July 31, 1924, 33): “From Washington to Coolidge.” “Its production was inspired in 1881 by a close personal friendship existing between Wm. Demuth, the original founder of the World’s Largest Pipe House, and James A. Garfield, then President of the United States, Mr. Garfield was a pipe smoker and connoisseur, and particularly fond of meerschaum pipes. …On the occasion of Mr. Garfield’s inauguration, and as an expression of his friendship, Mr. Demuth presented Mr. Garfield with two meerschaum pipes, one carved as a replica of Mr. Garfield himself and the other carved as a replica of Mrs. Garfield. Mr. Demuth then conceived the idea of perpetuating the features of all of the Presidents in meerschaum in the form of pipes and he commissioned one of the most skilled meerschaum carvers in his employ to this important task.”
- Examples in Meerschaum
Queen Victoria, courtesy, 1stdibs.com
Queen Elizabeth I, courtesy, piguet.com
Kaiser Wilhelm II, courtesy, invaluable.com
Supposedly Shakespeare, courtesy, pinterest.ca
Don Quixote (?), courtesy, collectorsweekly.com
Bacchus, courtesy, shutterstock.com
Paul Kruger (Oom Paul), courtesy, ebay.com
Barling’s Prince Albert, courtesy, martelmaidesauctions.com
Napoleon, courtesy, piguet.com
![Buffalo Bill, courtesy, piguet.com]]](/images/thumb/d/dc/Rapaport-LeadersCommemorated-13.jpg/367px-Rapaport-LeadersCommemorated-13.jpg)
Buffalo Bill, courtesy, piguet.com]]
Vercingetorix, courtesy, collectorsweekly.com
Charles Louis Bonaparte Napoléon and Empress Eugénie de Montijo, courtesy, piguet.com
Emperor Friedrich III of Germany and his consort, Victoria, courtesy, collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk
![Buffalo Bill, courtesy, piguet.com]]](/wiki/File:Rapaport-LeadersCommemorated-13.jpg)
U.S. Grant, Victor Hugo, William Gladstone, Adolphe Thiers, and others, courtesy, piguet.com
H. A. Saintsbury, Edward VII, Georges Clemenceau, Sarah Bernhardt, and Charles de Gaulle, courtesy, piguet.com
Leonardo da Vinci, Henry I, Henry IV, Jacques Cartier, and others, courtesy, piguet.com
Frédéric Chopin, Franz Liszt, Johann Strauss, and Pierre Paul Rubens, courtesy, piguet.com
Gustav Fischer Sr. of Boston carved several meerschaum pipes of Mephistopheles, Buffalo Bill, and Joan of Arc. The Bruce Museum retains this Fischer meerschaum pipe of Directum, a trotter, on its website (brucemuseum.org). Directum became the king of trotters as a colt, taking a mark of 2:05 1/4 on October 18, 1892 at Nashville. As a four-year-old, he was the fastest trotting stallion; fastest four-year-old trotter; winner of the fastest heat by a four-year-old; and shared with Alix (“Sweet Little Alix,” Queen of the Turf), the previous fastest trotter. Fischer believed that Directum was deserving of a pipe.
Courtesy, brucemuseum.org
Courtesy, time capsule retro (6450)
“Record Smashing,” The Rocky Mountain News, October 5, 1893: “Directum’s performance was the crowning triumph of a career that is simply marvelous. The mile in 2:07 was of itself a measure of speed that made the performance great. Back of the individual record there was a record of merit and gameness such as stands to the credit of no other horse that was ever shod.”
Abraham Lincoln, courtesy, viennameerschaum.com
Nelson Mandela, courtesy, viennameerschaum.com
JFK, courtesy, thebulldog57
Donald Trump, courtesy, royalmeerschaumpipes.com
Meerschaummarket.com offers portrait pipes of Pegasus, Medusa, Hercules, Bacchus, Zeus, King Tut and Athena. Of course, these are mythical creatures, artist renditions of what they might have looked like. Royal Meerschaum has a few personality pipes: Beethoven, JFK, Napoleon, and Popeye. Angela Robertson, “Top Seven Meerschaum Motifs” (smokingpipes.com), however, includes no personalities.
Wood
- Examples in Wood
George V, antiquetobaccopipes.com
François-Marie Arouet, Voltaire, courtesy, antiquetobaccopipes.com
William Gladstone, courtesy, antiquetobaccopipes.com
Paul Kruger, Oom Paul, courtesy, invaluable.com
Abraham Lincoln, courtesy, 1stdibs.com
William Shakespeare, courtesy, pipeshop-saintclaude.com
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, courtesy, etsy.com
Adolph Hitler, courtesy, proxibid.com
Winston Churchill, courtesy, bullockauctioneers.com
Charlie Chaplin, courtesy, craftsmanpipes.com
Buster Keaton, courtesy, craftsmanpipes.com
Arnold Schwarzenegger, courtesy, craftsmanpipes.com
Craftsmanpipes.com is Max Bogdan, aka Radon, a wood carver from Ukraine who may be the only person, today, who carves briar pipes to order. He began in 2018 and his repertoire includes the busts of Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Hellboy (Ron Perlman), Machete (Danny Trejo), the Joker (Joaquin Phoenix), Donald Trump, and others. There is also a series of carved wood cigar stands representing other notables: Winston Churchill, Roscoe Arbuckle, and King Kong.
France’s Roger Vincent also specializes in sculpted briar pipes of celebrities and people in government from the past. Pipeshop-saintclaude.com offers a large selection of his personalities: Jules Verne, Frédéric Chopin, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, William Shakespeare, Napoleon Bonaparte, Honoré de Balzac, Victor Hugo, Charles de Gaulle, and a few from the present, Emmanuel Macron and Nicolas Sarkozy. The following two illustrate his workmanship.
General Charles de Gaulle, courtesy, pipeshop-saintclaude.com
Napoleon Bonaparte, courtesy, pipeshop-saintclaude.com
The one and only, a younger Chuck Stanion, carved by Marek Lejzorowicz, courtesy, smokingpipes.com
Porcelain
- Examples in Porcelain
Courtesy, fledermausladen (25907)
Frederick II of Prussia (1712–1786)
General Helmuth von Moltke (1800–1899)
Paul von Hindenburg, courtesy, Manuela Kolompar
Kaiser Wilhelm II, courtesy, germaniainternational.com
Crown Prince Wilhelm, courtesy, bing.com
King Ludwig II, courtesy, oldinnpapers.rosenheim
Friedrich Schiller, courtesy, pfandhaus-Jena
Reineke Fuchs (Reynard the Fox)
In the past, pipes and cigar holders have been carved with the heads of horses, dogs, cats, bulls, wolves, lions, rams, bears, and deer. The only one with which I have an intimate familiarity is the fox motif, a category unto itself. “In German folklore, foxes are enigmatic figures, embodying both cunning intelligence and a hint of melancholy. Legends depict them as solitary wanderers, weaving through forests under the moon's watchful gaze. Their slyness hides a deeper sorrow, often tied to their elusive nature and the longing for connection” (brian_medeiros, Instagram).
Many books had been written about this omnivorous mammal belonging to several genera of the family Canidae. The fox is known for its bushy tail, pointed ears, slender body, intelligence, and cunning with keen senses. He is Reynard, a trickster figure, subversive, dashing, anarchic, and aristocratic, a witty fox from the watery lowlands of medieval East Flanders. “No wonder that the first great epic of Germany was Reineke Fuchs” (“The Brotherhood of All Creatures,” The Bookman, Vol. II, August-September, 1895–February, 1896, 407-8). “Probably every ethnic group in the world has its own set of tales about a trickster, a cunning person or animal that outwits an opponent nine times out of ten. In Europe he is Reynard the fox…” (Gerry Abbott and Khin Thant Han, The Folk-tales of Burma, 2000, 219). Reynard is the most celebrated animal that has ever appeared as a pipe and as a cheroot holder in tobacco-pipe history. He’s an entire industry! He is to German fable, what Brer Fox and Brer Rabbit are to American fable.
It’s medieval literature, some say, starting somewhere around 1500, when Hans van Ghetelen, a Lübeck printer published Reinke de Vos that was translated into Latin and other languages. Others claim that its history became popular during the 13th century. More up-to-date, there’s a 12-canto poem with 37 steel engravings: H. Leutemann, Reynard the Fox. A Poem in Twelve Cantos (1852), many other books in German, in French (Le Roman de Renard; Renard is the French word for fox), and in English, that have been reprinted.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Reineke Fuchs (1846), was a narrative poem, a satire in which cleverness or craft triumphs over physical strength and social power. Goethe had drawn on Johann Christoph Gottsched’s Reynke de Vos (1498) and the old French Roman de Renart (between 1165 and c. 1250). The poem reflects the medieval feudal order, with the animals representing different social classes. “Not infrequently the subject was an illustration of ancient German literature, as a scene from the story of Reynard the Fox—or of the works of Goethe or Schiller, in which Karl, or Faust, or the Satanic leer of Mephistopheles, was sure to figure” (F. W. Fairholt, Tobacco, 1858, 198).
No doubt, the illustrations by Wilhelm von Kaulbach in Goethe’s book inspired carvers to copy them. They certainly inspired the late Dr. Sarunas Peckus, an antique pipe collector, to buy every pipe or cigar holder in every medium that depicted Reineke, and to author The Story of Reineke Fuchs. A Collector’s “Pipe” Dream (2013). To honor Reineke, he tells the story by illustrating the pipes and holders of the wily fox in meerschaum, wood, and porcelain in poses that mirror Kaulbach’s engravings. In my view, this book has elevated Reineke into a legend and a luminary of tobacco history.
Courtesy, worthpoint.com
Courtesy, worthpoint.com
Courtesy, worthpoint.com
Courtesy, worthpoint.com
Courtesy, hysanikmeerschaum.com
Courtesy, hsyanik.com
Courtesy, rubylane.com
A museum is devoted to everything Reynard: the Reineke Fuchs Museum (reineke-fuchs.com) in Cologne, Germany. Read Francis M. Agnoli’s editorial, “Fantastic German Fox: The National Identity of Reineke Fuchs (1937)” (fantasy-animation.org).
It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that Roald Dahl’s book The Fantastic Mr. Fox (1970) and Wes Anderson’s animated movie, “Fantastic Mr. Fox” (2009) were somewhat based on Reineke. There’s also an animated movie, “Reineke Fuchs” (1989) in German.
Many non-tobacco objects as memorabilia have been produced in Germany and France, e.g., coffee sets, soup bowls, vases, an audio CD by Heinz Rühmann, etc., to commemorate Reineke that I opt not to include, but one item struck my fancy, this Reynard the Fox chess set of six cast-iron figures representing the principal characters that Christie’s, London, auctioned on November 28, 2017.
For further reading, go to pipedia.org, “The Man Who Carved Clay.”
This, then, my pipe friends, is an illustrative overview not of life imitating art, but art imitating life, real and imagined.