Neoclassical Brass Fireplace Companion Set with Duck Head Handles, Maison Jansen Style

This fireplace companion set exemplifies the decorative language that made Maison Jansen one of the most celebrated interior design houses of the twentieth century. Four tools — typically a brush, poker, shovel, and tongs — are suspended from a circular base stand of polished brass, each handle terminating in a gracefully arched duck neck crowned with a precisely modelled duck head. The zoomorphic finials are cast with remarkable anatomical attention, capturing the characteristic tilted attitude of a resting duck with quiet authority.

The form of the handles — long, sinuous, slightly flattened necks curving upward before resolving into the bird’s head — owes as much to the decorative repertoire of the Empire period as it does to the refinement of Art Déco luxury. Maison Jansen, working across neoclassical and modernist registers with equal facility, frequently employed animal motifs drawn from antiquity: swans, rams, dolphins, and notably waterfowl rendered in burnished brass or gilt bronze. This set is firmly rooted in that tradition, its proportions and finish consistent with Parisian ateliers of the late 1930s to early 1940s.

The circular stand, rising to a total height of seventy and a half centimetres, gives the set an elegant verticality well suited to the French interior of the period, where fireside accessories were considered furnishings in their own right. The quality of the casting and the evenness of the polish suggest manufacture at a specialist foundry working to the standards expected by Jansen-affiliated decorators and their discerning clientele.

A distinguished and eminently displayable example of mid-century French decorative metalwork, this companion set would enrich any fireside with both practical function and sculptural presence. It remains in notably fine condition, the patina warm and consistent throughout, with the duck-head finials retaining their original sharpness of definition.