Horn shaped wooden tobacco pipe bowl, Italy, 1850-1900

Made:
1850-1900 in Italy
Large wooden tobacco pipe Top - bottom

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Large wooden tobacco pipe
Science Museum Group
© The Board of Trustees of the Science Museum

Top - bottom
Science Museum Group Collection
© The Board of Trustees of the Science Museum

Large wooden tobacco pipe, bowl with elaborately decorated metal cap, and stem end, possibly Italian, 1850-1900

Carved into a horn shape from wood, this tobacco pipe bowl was said to have been used by the Chairman of the Students’ Smoking Club at Oxford or Cambridge University. Pipe smoking in the Victorian period was very much portrayed as a gentlemanly pursuit.

Tobacco pipe bowls come in a range of designs, from the simple to, as here, the highly extravagant. Such outlandish and impractical bowls are likely to have been given as gifts or perhaps as souvenirs. (Pictured here with two other tobacco pipe bowls, A14527 and A26495).

Details

Category:
Smoking
Collection:
Sir Henry Wellcome's Museum Collection
Object Number:
A14868
Materials:
bowl, walnut, ? material and mounts, metal (plated)
Measurements:
overall: 310 mm x 105 mm x 180 mm, 1.03kg
type:
tobacco pipe bowl
credit:
Wellcome Trust (Purchased from Stevens)