Pipe whimsey with figure eights
Not on view
Pipe whimseys, also called puzzle pipes, were made by Staffordshire potters in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. They were said to have been made at the end of the day, with leftover pieces of clay. Though tobacco could be smoked from the pipes, they were primarily intended as decorative pieces of “whimsy,” objects made to stir the imagination and stimulate the mind. This example has an elegant series of figure eights set within tightly wound coils arranged in an oval form.
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