Jens Quistgaard was born in Copenhagen in 1919. In 1954 the American Ted Nierenberg came across his work in Copenhagen, and Quistgaard became the founding designer of the company Nierenberg and his wife Martha started that year, Dansk. He drew its first logo and its first products, and by the V&A's count made more than 2,000 designs for Dansk from the mid-1950s through the 1980s.
His best-known work for Dansk includes Fjord flatware of 1953 in teak and stainless steel, Kobenstyle cookware in enamelled steel, teak ice buckets, and cast-iron candleholders like the 1962 Spider in the Met.
Reading the marks
Dansk pieces are marked with the company name, the country where they were made and the letters IHQ; the V&A records DANSK DESIGN with DENMARK or FINLAND and IHQ on two of its pieces. The teardrop candleholders we found in September 2026 are marked Dansk Designs France IHQ.
Quistgaard died in 2008 in Vordingborg. His work is in the collections of MoMA, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the V&A.
