Pipe Brands
Jan Pietenpauw
A South African handmade pipe brand under which Jean du Toit signs his work in the name of a maker who never existed; a father-and-son bench in Pretoria producing briar pipes with flowing lines.
Jan Pietenpauw is the name under which Jean Christophe du Toit, working in Pretoria, South Africa, signs his pipes. There is no real craftsman behind the name; Pietenpauw is a Dutch carver du Toit invented for his brand, one who never existed at all. The brand was founded in 2009 and continues today as a small father-and-son bench.
The Joke Behind the Name
Du Toit deliberately tells an exaggerated backstory for his fictitious maker: it is said that Pietenpauw first carved Van Hunks's pipe, and then Sherlock Holmes's famous calabash — after which it is pointed out that neither of them, nor Pietenpauw himself, ever actually lived. The promotional copy thus undercuts its own claim. The Van Hunks reference draws on South Africa's best-known pipe story: a retired sailor said to have entered a tobacco-smoking contest with the devil on the slopes of Table Mountain in Cape Town, who in popular imagination is credited as the source of the cloud that covers the mountain's summit. Sherlock Holmes's calabash, meanwhile, is a later addition that emerged not in the novels but in stage adaptations. Neither reference is a claim of historical lineage — both are an openly stated joke.
Workshop and Production
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Source: Pipedia, adapted under the CC BY-SA licence.