On April 1st 1945 Pierre Vansteeger (*1901) took over Simonet-Deanscutter's workshop at No. 66 rue Georges Moreau in Anderlecht, which the latter had set up on the third floor of the complex in 1932–1933 as silversmith-designer for Adolphe Simonet (1883–1946). His barrel-shaped maker's mark combines the coat of arms of the municipality of Vorst and his initials PV.
Léopold Alexandre Vansteeger, son of Pierre and Marcelle Moset (*1902), was born in Sint-Joost-ten-Node on November 16th 1927; he married Jeannine Freson in Vorst on September 30th 1950. In 1951, following the death of his father, he and his mother took over the workshop. Before that Léopold had served an apprenticeship in the Haresteeger workshop and studied at the Institut des Arts et Métiers de Bruxelles, which was awarded the Grand Prix Louis Titz of the city of Brussels in 1945.
Fortunately Léopold Vansteeger could draw on several years' experience and an extensive archive of drawings carefully put together by his father. The Simonet-Deanscutter establishment had achieved international recognition for its art-deco designs in Brussels in 1935 and in Paris in 1937. The modern services produced by the Pierre Vansteeger workshop in its early years are clearly indebted to the art deco, and especially the French. The Moderne N° 14 service is a particularly good example of this. It is in line with the designs produced by Tétard and Puiforcat, which is hardly surprising given that the Vansteeger archive contains several blueprints and design prints by these firms.
The number of new designs after 1951 is very limited and only very exceptionally is a drawing signed by Léopold Vansteeger as “L. Vansteeger” or “L. Vansteeger 66 r. G. Moreau”. The number of dated drawings from the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s are also few and far between. Be this as it may, most of these sketches derive from or were destined for other firms, like Altenloh and Leysen.
As the successor of former purveyor to the royal household Simonet-Deanscutter, commissions from the Belgian royal house still regularly came Vansteeger's way, and particularly orders for sports trophies, though he had to compete with Wolfers and two Portuguese companies in this area.
Over the years Pierre Vansteeger worked increasingly as a subcontractor for large companies (e.g. Altenloh and Wolfers) and shops (Brakmijn, Leyns, Leysen, Massaux, Matelot, Ruys, etc.) and after 1970 the emphasis was more and more on restoration work. As the years passed the number of employees in the Vansteeger workshop declined. Silversmith Antoine Niset (1903–1994) worked for Vansteeger from 1945 to 1968.
Léopold Alexandre Vansteeger died in Anderlecht on December 3rd 2004.