Fragment pijpenkop 1750 - 1790

This fragment of a pipe bowl, made from an unknown maker with an unrecorded date, offers a tactile, almost sculptural presence. The monochrome material is rough, with lines and shapes creating a landscape in miniature. The break in the bowl is a violent interruption of form. What was once a vessel, a container, is now an open wound. It disrupts our expectations of completion and challenges the object's intended use. Yet, within this destruction, a strange beauty emerges. The rough edges of the breakage reveal the texture of the material, while the remaining surface bears the imprints of a time when it was whole. The fragment becomes a signifier, not of what is, but of what was. It invites us to contemplate the semiotics of absence, where the missing part speaks as loudly as the part that remains. As a broken object, the pipe bowl stands as a testament to the transient nature of human creation.