Le Nuvole

Le Nuvole is the workshop Italian pipe maker Maurizio Tombari, a former painter, founded in 1996 in the Adriatic coastal city of Pesaro. The brand name means "clouds," summing up the line the workshop defines for itself: pipes that sit light in the hand, with no two pieces alike. Tombari deliberately keeps his production small; figures given for annual output vary from source to source, but all stay below a few hundred pieces.

The Maker's Background

Tombari was born in Pesaro in 1953 and earned a painting degree from the Academy of Fine Arts in Urbino in 1978. In the years before founding his own brand, he both worked in interior design and was employed at two of the region's established workshops, Mastro de Paja and Ser Jacopo. Pesaro's emergence after the 1970s as one of the centers of Italian handmade pipe making gives this background meaning for the brand's style: although Le Nuvole is the product of a personal search, it grew out of a local craft tradition.

The role of Tombari's wife, Stefania, in the workshop's shape work is often cited. This partnership on the drawing and design side has produced a shape repertoire drawing on vessel forms, in a city known for its ceramic tradition. Names such as Alveare (beehive), Barilotto (small barrel), Anfora, Bricco (jug), Cornetto, and Tappo (champagne cork) reflect this approach; alongside the classical molds, freehand examples are made as well.