Elie Bleu Vakar Tobacco Leaf Obsidian Ashtray — Brown

Elie Bleu Vakar Tobacco Leaf Obsidian Ashtray — Brown

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: deep tones 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.

Brown Obsidian

The brown variant reveals a dimension of the material that the black obscures: where black obsidian moves toward opacity, brown obsidian admits more light into its interior, producing amber and honey tones alongside the warm mahogany of the surface. The polished surface still captures light and returns reflections, but the effect is warmer and more translucent — the stone reads differently depending on the light source and the angle. The natural variations visible within the stone — transparency gradients, shifts in warmth and depth, the small internal features that are characteristic of volcanic glass — are not imperfections. They are the authentic expression of the 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.