As my readers know well, I love discovering smaller, lesser-known museums. Today I’d like to introduce you to a museum that fits the profile – the Amsterdam Pipe Museum in the Netherlands.
Prior to 2013, this collection of smokers pipes housed inside an old canal house was called the Pijpenkabinet (or Pipe Cabinet in English). It initially began as a hobby – the collection of a single man in fact, and today it is a most impressive, fully-fledged museum. The world’s most spectacular pipes are showcased here.
Benedict Goes, a tour guide at the Amsterdam Pipe Museum led me from the bottom room (which is a shop and main entrance to the museum) to the collections upstairs. He kindly gave me a personal tour, carefully explaining each and every cabinet and the history and stories behind some of the most precious pipes.
I learnt about pre-historic pipes, incredible archeological discoveries, clay pipes, porcelain pipes, ceramic pipes, sepiolite pipes, wood pipes and pipes made of all sorts of materials. I also learnt about the culture of pipe smoking and even viewed pipes that were once used for smoking opium.
As you can imagine, these pipes on display are extremely unique and decorative pieces. Take for instance the pipe shown below which is made from black clay and decorated by means of gilding. This pipe (which served rather as a display for a shop window) is whopping 25cm in height and dates from 1890 in France. There is a very regal stance about the man and this is furthered by the gilding on top of the black clay.
Below is a pipe entitled Negro Head. This pipe is made from smoked meerschaum (in Dutch) – a soft white mineral also known as foam of the sea; its scientific name is Sepiolite. The pipe dates from 1880 in Vienna, Austria. Just look at how extraordinary the detailed lines are on the man’s face. Smoking such a pipe no doubt conveyed a sense of cultural richness but also, in this instance, very much represented the exotic.
The next pipe (below) is made from porcelain and dates from 1900, Bohemia, a region in the Czech Republic. It depicts a beer drinker aptly perched below the tap of a beer barrel – pipe makers definitely had a sense of humour and this piece surely must have been quite a talking point at the time!
Next, find a brown clay pipe complete with beautiful fire-gilded decorations of reeds. This more typical pipe design stems from Marseille, France and dates from 1880.
The above pipes are just a taste (excuse the pun!) of what is on display at the Amsterdam Pipe Museum. Lovers of smoking and tobacco will certainly appreciate this very unusual and quaint museum and so too will lovers of art and history of course. This is a museum with a homely feel where one is very much welcomed from the onset.
All four photos of the individual pipes above have been provided by the Amsterdam Pipe Museum and this is the first time in which these images have been published online. Many thanks to Benedict Goes and all at the museum for their support in the writing of this blog post.
Elizabeth Joss-Bethlehem
Elizabeth Joss-Bethlehem is the founder and main writer at The Museum Times. She works as a university lecturer by day and is an avid travel blogger and arts and culture enthusiast by night. Elizabeth started The Museum Times out of the need to give smaller, lesser-known museums more exposure.
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I would love to travel to Amsterdam pipe museum one day.