Pair of Modernist Steel, Iron and Brass Andirons by Jacques Adnet

Jacques Adnet (1900–1984) stands as one of the most accomplished and versatile French designers of the twentieth century. Trained at the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs and early associated with the circles of the Union des Artistes Modernes, Adnet was appointed director of the Compagnie des Arts Français in 1928 — the firm founded by Louis Süe and André Mare — a position he held for more than thirty years, steering the house through the Art Déco period, the wartime years, and the post-war modernist revival. His signature vocabulary, a disciplined modernism favouring the combination of stitched leather, brass, and polished or wrought metal, became one of the defining languages of the mid-century French interior.

This pair of andirons, in steel, wrought iron, and brass and dating from around 1940, demonstrates Adnet's characteristic approach at the scale of the furnishing accessory. The chenet has been a luxury object in the French interior since at least the seventeenth century, when court bronziers produced pairs of extraordinary elaboration for the fireplaces of Versailles. In the modernist tradition, the form becomes an exercise in honest structure: functional uprights and horizontal rests resolved as a composition of pure geometric form, with brass accents providing the warmth and luminosity that humanise the cooler rigour of iron and steel.

At 41.5 cm deep and 27.5 cm tall, the pair are well-proportioned for a standard interior fireplace. The interplay of materials — the forge-work of wrought iron, the precision of steel, the warm gleam of brass — gives the chenets a multi-tonal richness that places them firmly in Adnet's mature period.

In good condition consistent with their age. A rare and distinguished pair of fireplace accessories by one of the most significant names in twentieth-century French design.