Pipe case, carved wood, varnished, St. Michael, probably France, 1730-1750

Design:
Pipe case of wood, carved in low relief, with brass fixtures. 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 endpiece is bulbous, and is decorated all over with a carved cross-hatched pattern. The decoration on the stem section is separated into four compartments by mouldings, three of which contain scrolling Rococo leaves. The second-nearest the bowl compartment has a rural scene of houses and trees.

Upon the front of the bowl compartment is a Rococo frame of scrolling leaves, on a diapered ground. On the lid is depicted the Archangel Michael, sword in hand, with Satan underfoot. On top of the bowl compartment, in two corresponding hemispheres, is a radial pattern of short segmented lines. Upon the spur are more scrolling leaves.

The inside of this case is not decorated.


Construction:
The case is made from two pieces of varnished wood: a lid and a main body. The hinge between the pieces is integral, and the two halves are joined by an iron rod pushed through the matching parts of both hinges. 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.

It closes with brass spring-plate, which catches just below the heel of the pipe case.


Condition:
This pipe case is fairly worn through use. There are a few small splits in the topmost decorated compartment on the proper right side.

Given by W. Sanders Fiske

Given by W. Sanders-Fiske, a collector who lived locally to the V&A, as part of a collection of pipe cases (museum nos. W.144 to 179-1928) in November 1928. RP 28/10633. He later donated to the Museum his important collection of 18th century Staffordshire porcelain figures.

H. Clifford Smith, in a note on a minute paper (RP 28/9292), 02/11/1928: ‘The collection of pipe-cases is undoubtedly a very interesting one, and every item differs.’ On entry to the Museum the condition of the object was noted as 'chipped and cracked in places'.

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. This case would have contained a relatively short pipe.

By this date, the rest of Europe had adopted a more upright pipe bowl: previously, this had mainly been seen in England from about 1700.
Most eighteenth-century pipe cases 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’.

Pipe smoking became more generalised in Europe following the wars of Louis XIV. His campaigns took French soldiers into countries where the smoking of tobacco pipes was generally accepted, and they took up the habit. Their fondness for it was increased by the Sun King’s insistence on a daily tobacco ration for his soldiers, as well a pipe for each man and the means to light it.

Up to around 1830 the smoking of pipes in France was restricted to the lower and middle-classes, as the aristocracy preferred to take snuff. According to Napoleon Bonaparte’s valet, Constant, the Emperor considered that pipe smoking ‘was only good for helping idlers to while away the time’.

Formerly in the collection of William Bragge (1823 - 1884), a Birmingham-born civil engineer, antiquarian and collector.

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 were sometimes 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 <i>As the Old Sing So Pipe the Young</i> (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.

The date range for this object, and its artistic style, suggest that its owner was a person of taste. Rococo was the prevalent decorative style in France during the eighteenth century, with 1730-1750 being the height of its popularity.

W.166-1928