Brass Fireplace Companion Set with Angled Duck-Head Handles on Stand. In the Style of Maison Jansen. France. Circa 1970.

This tall and exceptionally elegant brass fireplace companion set exemplifies a variant of the celebrated Maison Jansen duck-head motif that differs significantly — and fascinatingly — from the more commonly encountered S-neck model. Rather than the sinuous curved neck that characterises the classic Jansen form, each tool is surmounted by a cast duck head whose beak projects forward at a sharp right angle to the shaft, like the crook of a walking stick. The result is a handle of great formal confidence — simultaneously practical and sculptural, the horizontal thrust of the beak providing an ergonomic grip while creating a strong graphic silhouette.

The tools — poker, tongs, shovel and brush — are executed on tall, slender shafts of polished brass, their height (the full set stands 86 cm) giving them a quality of aristocratic elongation that commands attention. Small turned collars punctuate the shafts at intervals, providing textural variation against the otherwise plain cylindrical forms and recalling the vocabulary of neoclassical column turning. The stand, also in brass, groups the tools with architectural simplicity.

The duck-head motif, as deployed by Maison Jansen and the Parisian decorating firms working in their wake, drew on the long tradition of waterfowl ornament in French decorative arts — a tradition rooted in the Empire and Directoire periods and revived with great sophistication in the mid-twentieth century. The right-angle version seen here, with its more graphic and geometric character, is particularly associated with the production of the 1960s and 1970s, when houses working in this idiom began to abstract and simplify the naturalistic duck form.

In fine condition with a warm, lightly oxidised brass patina of great character, this set — considerably taller and more imposing than the more common shorter versions — represents an excellent example of French brass craftsmanship at its most assured.