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First edition hard back binding in publisher's original finely grained bronze cloth covers, gilt title and author lettering to the spine, gilt pipe to the front cover. 4to. 11½'' x 9¼''. The author is director of the 'Revue des Tabacs' and president of the 'Pipe Club de France'. The pipe instrument formed of a wood stove and a pipe, used to smoke tobacco. Roughly speaking, this is without doubt the definition that most of our contemporaries would give to the pipe. and yet! Do we know, for example, that it was not necessary to wait for the discovery of tobacco and its properties for our ancestors to indulge in the charms of the pipe? Hemp was thus known and used well before tobacco, which allows us to advance that the history of the pipe is practically as old as that of humanity. Do we know that from Asia to Africa, passing by the Indians and the Eskimos, all kinds of peoples, and of all times, competed in ingenuity in the manufacture of pipes? Do you know that before getting to the wooden pipes, the best known today, a thousand other materials were used: human bones, skin, iron, silver, porcelain, ivory, jade, sea foam, glass, terracotta, stone, etc.? Do we know that these pipes affected the most extraordinary shapes and sizes, as evidenced by the incredible English pipes from Staffordshire, the well-named 'serpentine' pipes? To all these questions, and to many others concerning the manufacture of pipes, the provenance of certain materials (sea foam, for example), the choice of tobacco, etc., answers the work of Mr. André-Paul Bastien. The pipe, according to him, much more than a simple object, can often be considered as a true witness of its time of which it reflects customs and beliefs. This book is illustrated by an iconography as rich as it is carefully selected. These documents come either from museums or from private collections of which the author has been allowed to photograph the rarest and most precious pieces. La Pipe, in short, is therefore aimed not only at pipe and tobacco lovers, but also at anyone interested in history, art or ethnography. Contains printed pages of French text with 157 monochrome illustrations and 30 colour photographs throughout. Fine condition book in Good condition dust wrapper with sun fading down the spine, short closed tear to the bottom edge of the front cover. peeling of the laminate across the spine ends. SIGNED by the author in French to the half-title page 'A. P. Bastien.' Dust wrapper supplied in archive acetate film protection. Member of the P.B.F.A. ISBN 2228600105 PIPE, CIGAR & MATCHES.
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