Carved walnut with saints, German; dated 1778

Design:
Pipe case of walnut carved in low relief with engraved brass mount. The case consists of a compartment for the pipe bowl, which can be opened, allowing the pipe to be inserted; a stem section; a ventilation hole at the mouthpiece end.

The decoration on the stem section is divided into three horizontally-orientated panels, each featuring two Scriptural images, separated by a band with alternating winged angels’ faces and death’s heads (Totenkopf). The band nearest the endpiece has four wingless, inverted angels’ faces (or putti), and the topmost band mirrors this arrangement.

The endpiece bears the carved inscription ‘ANNO 1778’, and is carved around the ventilation hole with a flower with five petals.

Starting at the panel nearest the endpiece, the upper half of the panel shows a male saint (possibly St. Dominic) holding a small crucifix on his right shoulder, with a skull in his hand and a rosary hanging from his belt. There is an orb under his right foot and his left hand is raised in a sign of benediction, or to smite. On the reverse is a bird in flight, looking straight ahead, with a halo, possibly representing the Holy Spirit.

The next panel up has on its upper side a beardless male saint wearing a crown or mitre, holding a small crucifix and possibly a martyr’s palm. He has a halo of stars. On the reverse is John the Baptist in loincloth and cloak, his right arm raised in benediction and with a cross-headed staff and banner held in his left hand.

The third panel has on its upper side a bearded male saint, probably St. Christopher, carrying a child crowned with a halo and bearing a staff. On the reverse is another bearded male saint, seated on an orb and holding a sceptre, wearing an elaborate cloak.

Upon the front of the bowl compartment is shown the Holy Family; Mary is shown on the left, the child Christ in the centre, and Joseph on the right. The Holy Spirit swoops down from above toward Jesus. On the reverse is a standing male royal saint, wearing a crown, ermine cape and striped attire; he holds a sceptre, has a sword at his waist and has an orb beneath his right foot.

The spur is decorated with scrolling leaf ornament.

The brass hinge plate is engraved with a small flower or sun on the side of the lid, and has two small stars just above it on the same side. There are possible remnants of light engraved decoration around the rim. The inside of the bowl compartment is unadorned.


Construction:
The case is made from two pieces of walnut: a lid and a main body. On top is a brass hinge plate, nailed with six tacks to the lid and main body, with three tacks used apiece. The part of the case in which the stem of the pipe would have resided would probably have been bored using a heated metal rod.

The lid is held closed by an iron catch which fits into an opening opposite.


Condition:
There is a small hole beneath the uppermost angel’s wing on the band nearest the bowl compartment.

Purchased from Herr Pickert of Nuremburg for £2 10s on 23rd October 1872.

Previously displayed at the Bethnal Green Museum (now the V&A Museum of Childhood).

Clay tobacco pipes are fragile, so cases such as this one were used to ensure they would remain intact when carried outside by their owners. Post-1690 a spur on the pipe’s ‘heel’ developed which made them easier to hold as one could do so without the risk of burning one’s fingers. For long pipes, this also meant it could be rested on a table without leaving a burn mark. The hinged lid tended to be favoured after this date as a sliding closure would catch on the spur.

Most eighteenth-century pipes featured an opening at the end of the stem section, possibly to, in the words of W. Sanders Fiske, ‘keep the pipe sweet and clean’.

Smoking leaf tobacco in clay pipes became established in all parts of Europe during the course of the 17th century, following its introduction from Mexico by Francesco Fernandez in 1558. It was consumed as a fashionable and healthy substance by adult men and women, but its relatively high cost meant that its use was generally restricted to the mercantile classes and above. The fragile clay pipes used to smoke tobacco were also initially quite expensive, and often highly decorated, so protective wooden pipe cases were developed to contain them.

This case would have contained a relatively short pipe which could have been easily carried outdoors inside a pocket. Long pipes, of the type made famous in the paintings of many Dutch masters of the seventeenth-century (for a good example see Jan Steen’s As the Old Sing So Pipe the Young (1668-70), tended to be smoked at home or at an inn. These were considered more desirable as they could hold more tobacco, and because they allowed the smoke to cool before it was inhaled, although they were more fragile and unwieldly.

Pipe smoking was a popular pastime in Germany where this case was thought to have been produced. The small skull and crossbones motifs are known in German as Totenkopf(literally 'head of a dead man'). It became a popular symbol in Germany after its introduction to the Prussian cavalry under Frederick the Great in the middle of the eighteenth century. More generally, skulls were symbols of mortality.

787-1872