Brass Fireplace Companion Set with Duck-Head Handles on Stand. In the Style of Maison Jansen. France. Circa 1960.

Few motifs in twentieth-century French decorative brass are as immediately recognisable — or as consistently distinguished — as the elongated duck-head handle, a form associated above all with the legendary Parisian decorating house Maison Jansen. This complete fireplace companion set, comprising poker, tongs, shovel and brush raised on a circular disc stand, deploys that motif with confident mastery: each slender brass shaft curves into a graceful S-neck and terminates in a finely cast duck head, the beak and eye rendered with the crisp precision of high-quality sand-casting.

The tools are executed entirely in polished brass, the warm golden surfaces unmarked by lacquering or artificial darkening, allowing the metal to speak with its own inherent luminosity. The circular base, with its clean disc form and balanced proportions, anchors the group with satisfying solidity while allowing each tool to fan outward in an elegant display — a design solution as practical as it is beautiful.

The duck or waterfowl head as a decorative motif has deep roots in the French decorative arts tradition, appearing in furniture, bronzes and fireplace accessories from the Directoire and Empire periods onward. Maison Jansen, the celebrated boulevard des Capucines firm active from 1880 to 1989, brought this vocabulary to its most refined mid-century expression, producing brass accessories of extraordinary quality that are today among the most sought-after objects in the international decorative arts market. The present set, dating to circa 1960, is thoroughly consistent with the house's aesthetic and technical standards.

In very fine condition, the brass retaining its full polish and all four tools present and complete, this companion set represents the very best of mid-century French brass craftsmanship — equally at home in a distinguished period interior or as a collector's object of significant appeal.