Pipe of the Month – December 2025

A pipe made by the French company Dutel - Gisclon

The pipe of the month for December was made by Dutel-Gisclon. In a time when a pipe often served as a starting point for conversation in, for example, gentlemen’s clubs, it was not unusual to smoke pipes that depicted remarkable people or situations. Sometimes these were figures from other countries, such as Africans, Chinese, Arabs, Bedouins, etc. After all, race was an important topic of discussion at the time, often linked to ideas about the so-called superiority of the white race. Fortunately, those days are behind us, and even the term race is hardly used anymore; instead, we speak of ethnicity. The supposed superiority of white people also no longer belongs to the present day.

The Chinese man depicted here has small metal rings through his ears and is wearing a Chinese hat decorated with yellow and blue glaze. The addition of metal elements occurred more often in the 19th century on luxury pipes.

Dutel-Gisclon was based in Montereau (Seine-et-Marne, France). The Gisclon company was founded in 1829 in Moulin-Lille. Around 1870 the factory was relocated to Montereau, where Gisclon continued the business together with his son-in-law Dutel. Pipes produced there were marked DG. After a fire in 1895, the factory’s molds were taken over by Victor Belle in Erôme-Serves.