BOOKENDS BY LOUIS GUDEBROD - RARE

A friend of mine picked up a nice set of bookends at a recent auction. Preliminary research came up with very little information about them. They appeared to be signed by a sculpter, L. CUDEBROD. Internet searches came up empty. However, there is an entry in the fantastic "Collector's Encyclopedia of Bookends" by Louis Kuritzky and Charles De Costa (2006) of a pair of Egyptian Pharaoh bookends that are signed by the same L CUDEBROD. After a few scratches of the head, he noticed that on one of the bookends, the "C" in CUDEBROD was actually a "G". A quick internet search revealed that the sculpter was actually Louis Albert Gudebrod. Gudebrod was born 9/20/1872 in Middletown, CT. He spent one term at Yale Art School and then traveled to Europe from 1897-1900 where he attended the Art Student’s League, studying under or with Mary Lawrence, Augustus St.Gaudens and Jean Dampt. Gudebrod had a studio in the Latin Quarter in Paris. While there he worked on a statue of General William Tecumseh Sherman which was shown at the Paris Expostion in 1900. Around the same time, he was commissioned by Louis Comfort Tiffany to design the famous mermaid base for one the 3 Tiffany Nautilus Lamps. In 1901 at the Pan American Expo in Buffalo, he designed one of 5 statues (Lake Huron) representing the 5 great lakes. He was named Director of Sculpture at the Charleston Expostion 1901-02. His statue, "Aztec Group" received a silver medal. Around the same period his design for the Jefferson Davis Memorial Arch was chosen as the winning design over several well known sculpters. Gudebrod's entry in the 1903-04 St Louis Exposition was a statue of the explorer LaSalle. Among his other works was a statue of Gen J.E.B. Stuart, busts of Schiller and Henry Clay, a bas relief of 2 children titled "John and Elizabeth" and a Memorial Tablet made for the Daughters of the Revolution in Meridan, CT where Gudebrod lived most of his life. Now, back to the bookends. They depict 2 monkish looking gentlemen and are entitled with the latin words "Lex" (Law or covenant) and "Prophetia" (Scriptural). They have a copyright of 1915 on the back which is 11-13 years earlier than is attributed to the Pharaoh bookends which were made by Armor Bronze. Gudebrod is not listed anywhere as being a major sculpter or designer of bookends. As far as is known today, he has one pair incorrectly attributed to a L. Cudebrod and one pair that potentially could be a new discovery. The authors of the aforementioned book have been contacted regarding the error and the new bookends. My friend is going to offer them for sale.