Hungarian Kalmasche, 1850

Hungarian Kalmasche, 1850 is a single antique pipe that offers a useful window into mid-19th-century Hungarian pipe making and the political climate of the time. The piece in question is a wooden pipe carved in the Hungarian bowl form known as kalmasch, with a scene from early Hungarian history worked into the bowl's surface.

What Is a Kalmasch?

In pipe literature, the kalmasch is counted as one of three distinctive bowl forms that took root early in Hungary; the others go by the names Debrecen and Rákóczy (Ragoczy). The kalmasch bowl resembles the silhouette of a kettle or an inverted bell; it is fitted with a thin, long neck and, in terms of how it is used, sits close to the çubuk (long Turkish-style pipe). Most of these bowls are carved from wood; meerschaum examples are rarer. The preference for wood also fits the region's carving tradition; hard, fine-grained native woods lend themselves to relief carving, as with woods other than briar generally.