Elie Bleu Vakar Tobacco Leaf Obsidian Ashtray — Black

Elie Bleu Vakar Tobacco Leaf Obsidian Ashtray — Black

Obsidian is not a material that tolerates approximation. It is volcanic glass — formed when lava cools too quickly to crystallize — and it fractures along conchoidal lines that have made it useful to humans since the Paleolithic. The stone used in the Vakar Collection is sourced from Mount Ararat, the volcanic massif that straddles the Turkish-Armenian border, whose obsidian has particular optical character: a deep, almost total black with transparency effects and internal variations that give the surface movement even in still light. The Elie Bleu atelier works this material by hand, cutting and polishing each piece individually. No casting, no mold — the form is arrived at through the stone.

Tobacco Leaf

The Tobacco Leaf ashtray takes its shape from the source material of the cigar itself. The silhouette is stylized — the proportions of a broad leaf abstracted into a form that reads immediately but remains geometric enough to function as a piece of table design. The narrower end provides a cigar rest; the bowl carved into the body collects ash in a defined cavity rather than leaving it to spread across the surface. It holds one cigar. Dimensions: 17 cm wide, 10 cm deep, 4 cm in height — substantial enough to anchor a table but not oversized.

Black Obsidian

The black variant presents the deepest expression of the material. The polished surface captures surrounding light and returns it as a reflection, giving the piece a mirror-like quality at certain angles that shifts to near opacity at others. The natural variations visible within the stone — chips, transparency gradients, subtle shifts in the depth of the black — are not imperfections. They are the authentic expression of an unmanufactured material. Each piece is visually unique.

Within the Vakar Collection, the Tobacco Leaf shares the same material and fabrication philosophy as the plain-form and Fire Horse obsidian ashtrays — hand-cut from Mount Ararat obsidian, hand-polished, no two pieces identical — but brings a subject that belongs specifically to the cigar world. The tobacco leaf is where the cigar begins. The ashtray is where it ends.

Now available at The Tobacconist of Greenwich.