Jens Steuler

Jens Steuler is a craftsman making clay pipes in the town of Hilgert, in Germany's Westerwald region. The trade known in German as Pfeifenbäckerei — literally "pipe baking" — has all but died out in the country, and Steuler's workshop is counted among the few remaining addresses carrying on this work in its traditional form. The name thus describes, less a pipe brand in the usual sense, than a body of production knowledge passed down through generations in a single village.

Hilgert and Pipe Baking

Hilgert lies in the part of the Westerwald known for its pottery history, called the "land of jug bakers" (Kannenbäckerland). The clay craft here reaches back centuries; records indicate that around the mid-eighteenth century the emphasis shifted from pottery generally to the clay pipe, after which the whole town's livelihood and identity became bound up with this production. The trace survives today: the pipe motif still appears on the coats of arms of the municipality and local associations.

The craft's arrival in Germany dates to the early seventeenth century, when tobacco use spread via England and the Netherlands. The raw material is a special pipe clay that fires white. Within the history of clay pipes, this white bowl has been seen as the symbol of a cheaply reproducible smoking tool. The spread of pipes made of briar gradually pushed the clay pipe into the background.