S.T. Dupont Maki-E Line 2 "Perfect Ping" — Toryumon
The S.T. Dupont Maki-E Line 2 Toryumon carries one of Japan's most enduring narratives on its surface: the story of the carp that refuses to be what it was born as.
The Art of Maki-E
Maki-e — literally "sprinkled picture" — is a Japanese lacquerware technique with origins in the 8th century. In its execution, a lacquer motif is first painted by hand onto the surface. While the lacquer is still wet, gold, silver, or other metallic powders are applied through a fine bamboo tube, settling into the design with an exactness no mechanical process can replicate. The piece is then placed in a cedar box to dry — slowly, carefully — before being polished by hand with magnolia leaf, charcoal, camellia, and nettle. The result is a surface of extraordinary depth: warm, luminous, and unrepeatable. No two pieces emerge identical from this process.
Wajimaya Zenni
S.T. Dupont partnered with Wajimaya Zenni Inc., master lacquerware artisans based in Japan, to execute the Maki-E collection. Each piece bears the "Zenni" signature — a mark of origin, of authorship, and of the individual hand that made it. Wajimaya Zenni's tradition is rooted in the Wajima lacquerware school, one of the most distinguished in Japan, known for the depth and luminosity of its finishes.
Toryumon — The Dragon Gate
登竜門 — Toryumon, the Dragon Gate — is a Japanese expression rooted in an ancient Chinese legend: a carp that swims upstream against a powerful waterfall and, upon passing through the gate at the summit, is transformed into a dragon. The gate itself has come to symbolize any threshold of ambition — the examination, the trial, the moment that separates what one is from what one may become. On the Line 2, this transformation is fixed in gold powder lacquer: the carp in its striving, the gate above, and the dragon that waits on the other side. It is a lighter for those who understand that the gate must be earned.
The Line 2
The Line 2 is S.T. Dupont's defining lighter — the piece against which all others in the Maison's range are measured. Its double yellow flame and the crystalline "perfect ping" that sounds at the opening of the cap have been the acoustic and functional signatures of S.T. Dupont craftsmanship for decades. On the Maki-E Toryumon, the Line 2 holds a narrative as old as aspiration itself.
Now available at The Tobacconist of Greenwich.
