Pipe case, carved and incised wood, tulips and hunters, probably Netherlands, 1740-1770

Design:
Pipe case of wood, carved in low relief, with brass mounts. 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 undecorated, but is differentiated from the stem section with a deeply turned band. The stem section is decorated with a number of incised rings, set at intervals along its length. Just beneath the bowl compartment is an incised decorative panel, depicting tulips and scrolls, which wraps around the circumference of the stem section.

The bowl compartment has carved on its front (i.e. facing the ‘smoker’) a table holding a jug, either side of which are two men, who both wear coats and caps, shown in profile holding cups. Above them is a carved and incised diapered ground, upon which is a heart-shaped brass mount.

On both sides of the bowl compartment is shown an armed man aiming a rifle or musket. There are also two hounds (one on the lid, one on the main body; on both sides of the bowl) shown pursuing a hare or rabbit.

Upon the lid is another heart-shaped brass mount, a hare and a hound. The ‘heel’ of the case is decorated with incised scrolling ornament.

The inside of this case is not decorated.


Construction:
The case is made from two pieces of carved and incised wood: a lid and a main body. Connecting the two pieces is a brass hinge, held in place with tacks. 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.


Condition:
This pipe case is fairly worn through use. The spring-catch which would have held it closed is missing.

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.’ Upon entry to the Museum the condition of this object was noted as 'catch missing, worn and rubbed'.

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.
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’.

Tobacco smoking as a popular pastime was spread across Europe during the Thirty Years War (1618-1648), in which the Dutch Republic was involved for twenty-nine of those years. By the time of Queen Anne, a gross (144) of Dutch pipes cost 2s in England.

Initially all tobacco entered Europe via the Spanish colonies in the Americas, though England later began importing from its own colony of Virginia. The United East India Company later established tobacco plantations in the Dutch colony of Indonesia.

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.

This pipe case is decorated around its stem section with a band of tulips. These flowers have been closely identified with the Netherlands since the first half of the seventeenth century. Valued for their intense, unbroken petal colour, they were the cause of an economic bubble in 1637 when tulip bulbs were said to have changed hands up to ten times a day.

W.168-1928