Designer: Ben Siebel (1918 – 1985)

Item: Shovel Bookends

Manufactured by: Maison Gourmet by Jenfredware by Levco Mfg.

Country of origin: United States

Year made: 1950s

Materials: Brass plating over a magnesium, copper-zinc and aluminum base with an original baked on lacquer finish and their original green felt.

Dimensions: Each are 5 ¾” x 6” x 2 ¾”

Condition: Very Good. The brass finish shows some age spots and scratches as shown. One of the original labels came loose and a prior owner used some tape to hold it place.

Description: Here is an important and stylish design by Ben Seibel for Jenfredware for his bookends that are often referred to as the Shovel Bookends, but we can find no catalog or documentation for that name. This design was done as part of a series of modernist bookends Seibel designed for Jenfredware. Maison Gourmet was a division of Jenfredware that sold the Jenfredware products at higher-end stores and department stores. These are very stylish, well made and heavy, weighing in at about 2.2 pounds each.

Seibel was born in Newark, New Jersey but raised in Manhattan, where his mother had a shop in Greenwich Village selling her own jewelry and fashion designs. Seibel began pursuing a degree in architecture at Columbia University after studying with noted American modernist artists Louis Schanker and Leo Amino. After putting his education on hold for a three-and-a-half year term of service in the Air Force, Seibel returned to New York City in 1945, enrolling at Pratt Institute with a concentration in industrial design. He never completed his degree, instead started a studio that he maintained alongside a small staff until his death in 1985. The available literature indicates that Siebel’s designs for Jenfred-Ware were first introduced in 1948 and utilized various metal plated finishes over a magnesium, copper-zinc and aluminum base metal.