CARLO BUGATTI (Milan, Italy, 1856 - Molsheim, France, 1940).
Coffee table, ca. 1890.
In walnut wood, inlaid with pewter and bronze, bone, mother-of-pearl, copper and vellum.
Inscribed: "Casati".
It shows restoration on the surface, as well as some wear due to time and use.
This piece is in Italy and is awaiting an export permit.
Measurements: 78 cm x 60 cm octagon.
The present table was designed by the artist and designer Carlo Bugatti for the legendary and very rich Marquise Luisa Casati Stampa (Milan, 1881-London, 1957). For Bugatti, producing works of design featuring the Marquise's surname was a great prestige for his career, as Luisa Casati was one of the great patrons of the 19th century, driven by the desire to become a work of art herself.
As can be seen, the orientalist or "maroquinerie" style, very much in vogue in the first decade of the 1900s, enriches the entire piece.
Through restrained craftsmanship and design, the Milanese artist succeeded in turning these decorative pieces into absolute luxury objects with a curiously exotic and colourful appearance.
The forms used evoke the Moorish style, from the use of the horseshoe arch and legs simulating columns, to the ornamental work of geometric and naturalistic forms inlaid with pewter, copper and bone, highlighting the painting of a graceful stork on the surface.
Carlo Bugatti showed his creative and artistic talents from an early age and was enrolled by his father at the Brera Academy, where he met the artist Giovanni Segantini, and subsequently attended the Ecole de Beax-Arts in Paris. Later, in the late 1970s, Bugatti worked for the cabinetmaker Mentasti, owner of the Piccolo Stabilimento di Lavorazione del Legno in Via San Marco, Milan.
From 1888 onwards, there is evidence of a Bugatti workshop in Via Castelfidardo 6, Milan. In the same year, Carlo established himself as a cabinetmaker at the Italian Exhibition in London. His furniture is unique, using precious woods as well as ivory, copper, mother-of-pearl, camel and fallow deer hide. These creations were particularly appreciated and harmonised well with the exotic and Moorish taste typical of the time. As early as 1890, the famous cabinetmaker had opened a studio-workshop in Paris, where, at the Universal Exhibition of 1900, his furniture was awarded prizes marking the international triumph of Art Nouveau.
Settling in Paris in 1903, he met the art dealer and founder Adrien A. Hèbrard (1865-1937), who persuaded him to devote himself to sculpture, commissioning objects and ornaments from him, including a fantastic bestiary which Hèbrard exhibited in his gallery in 1907. After leaving Paris in 1910, Bugatti moved to Pierrerfonds in the Oise, where he became mayor. The last years of his life were marked by dramatic events, such as the suicide of his son Rembrandt in 1916, the death of his daughter Deanice and finally that of his wife Therese. In 1935 he decided to move to Alsace, to Molsheim, where his son Ettore had opened the famous Bugatti car factory, and where he died in April 1940.