L'art pour l'art


Fin de siecle Meerschaum pipes from the most common to the most rare.

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(1) The High-Relief Portrait Bust (most common)

> The motifs: Anonymous or generalized historic types- most notably the Ottoman/"Turk" or Sultan wearing a fez or turban, and the Bacchic/Classical Old Man often draped in grapevines.

(2) Elegant Victorian ladies wearing elaborate hats, highly popular with urban dandies, these occasionally crossed into subtle erotica, or toyed with the era's fascination with femme fatales.

(3) Animals and Sporting Motifs
> The motifs: Hunting dogs, horses, predatory birds, and "lions. tigers and bears, Oh My!"
Connected to the lifestyle of the European country gentry and the sport of hunting.

(4) Botanical, Geometric and Structural Forms
> The motifs: The "claw and egg" (an eagle or dragon talon clutching a plain or fluted bowl), tightly woven basket-weave or lattice patterns, and deep floral/acanthus scrollwork.

5. Nautical, Orientalist, and Colonial Figures
> The Motifs: Sailors with long beards and sou'westers, Moorish or North African warriors on horseback, and generalized subjects from the far away reaches of colonial empires, and, most revealingly and interestingly, the            exoticized "Other."

6. Classical Mythology and Figures of Allegory
> The Motifs: Classical deities, Nymphs, Cupids or Putti, Bacchic figures festooned with grapes, Mermaids, Satyrs
These subjects generally required/attracted master-level carvers and were thus more expensive. They appealed to the classically educated elites who smoked and viewed their pipes as miniature sculptures to be shown off and admired.

7. Contemporary Historical, Operatic, and Literary Events (Rare)
> The Motifs: > political figures, royalty, military heroes, scenes from Wagnerian operas, or literary archetypes. 
> Often commissioned by the well- heeled. 

8. Avant-Garde, Decadent, Erotic/Obscene, and Bizarrely Unusual
(The Rarest)
> The Motifs: the grotesque, eccentric, weird, unique, obscene, satirical and mad - occupying a space outside commercial meerschaum production, often commissioned privately by bohemian intellectuals or artists, and idiosyncratic, hyperesthetes like Duke Jean des Esseintes of:

                                                                              "A rebours"