Carlo Bugatti (Milan 1856-Molsheim 1940), Mobile Bookcase, circa 1885.Wood, pewter, bone, and embossed copper. 214x100x45 cm This elaborate bookcase, with its rather unique appearance, perfectly represents the eclectic style of Carlo Bugatti's furniture. Apparently composed of two pieces, the piece was made of polychrome woods and bone inlays arranged in geometric motifs. The two side beams feature a pewter decoration reminiscent of Japanese ideograms, alternating with stylized insect figures. The columns of the lower part are covered with multiple copper bands, worked with the embossing technique in floral motifs. A large embossed copper rosette stands out on the upper part of the piece, acting as a door for an internal recess, also decorated with wooden columns. Stylistically similar to the group of furniture created by Bugatti as a wedding gift for his sister Luigia's marriage, as can be seen in the illustrated pages of the volume Carlo, Rembrandt, Ettore, Jean Bugatti edited by Philippe Dejean. BIOGRAPHY Carlo Bugatti was born in Milan in 1856; his father Giovanni, an eclectic man with interests ranging from science to architecture and sculpture, gave him his first artistic education. In 1875 he enrolled at the Brera Academy, where he met the future painter Giovanni Segantini; he enrolled in the Ornament School followed by Professor Claudio Bernacchi, and then perfected his skills at the École des Beaux Arts in Paris during the formative period of the celebrated goldsmith René Lalique. Bugatti began his career as an architect, designing buildings with an exotic taste, and then, in the 1880s, increasingly oriented himself towards the design and creation of original furniture, to which he added the use of extravagant and sui generis materials. The furniture maker and designer was the son of an era marked by the revaluation of the Middle Ages, from which movements such as John Ruskin's Neo-Gothic and William Morris's Arts and Crafts arose, and to which was added a strong interest in oriental art, becoming a precursor of the Liberty style in Italy. Bugatti's works, from the very beginning, present a combination of floral motifs, but also insects, references to Japanese and Islamic art; the materials chosen are a vast variety of woods aimed at creating polychrome effects, but also the use of pewter, ivory, bone, metals such as bronze, brass and especially copper inlays, often worked with the embossing technique and, finally, parchment: the artist had in fact invented an extremely resistant glue able to increase the durability of objects. The first work by Bugatti of which we have written documentation is the bedroom designed for his sister Luigia, who in 1880 married the aforementioned Segantini. In the same year, Carlo Bugatti married Teresa Lorioli, with whom he had three children: Deanice, Ettore and Rembrandt. In 1888 he participated in the Earls Court Exhibition in London, where he presented, among his creations, a screen with an eclectic taste, particularly appreciated by English critics, as demonstrated by its presence within the magazine The Journal of Decorative Art. From 1890 onwards, Bugatti created his best-known models, including wooden and parchment chairs with inclined backrests, desks with embossed copper ornaments, three-seater sofas, but also writing desks, wardrobes and beds. In 1900 he took part in the Exposition International in Paris, achieving great success, and then exhibited his Stanza-Chiocciola, a singular invention that imitated the shell of gastropods on the exterior and interior, in Turin in 1902. In the same year, he was commissioned by the Muslim architect Antoine Losciac to create a series of furniture for the house of the mother of the Khedive of Egypt, Abbas Helmy II. At the peak of his career, Bugatti ceded his furniture factory in Milan to De Vecchi, his collaborator, to move to Paris. Here he devoted himself to the creation of small furnishing and goldsmith objects in silver and chiseled copper; the works of this period, characterized by a marked influence of Art Deco, are frequently decorated with sinuous curves, floral references as well as the repertoire of stylized dragonflies, to which he implements figures of frogs, masks and palmettes. Together with the works of his talented son Rembrandt, who in the meantime has trained as a sculptor (his sculptures of animals are famous and sought after), Bugatti's objects are exhibited, sold and also reproduced by Adrien Hebrard, founder of the homonymous foundry. In 1910, following the failing health of his wife Teresa, Bugatti left Paris to move to Pierrefonds, a city of which he became mayor, beginning to devote himself to painting and sculpture; the following years of Bugatti's life are marked by a succession of misfortunes, first of all the suicide of his son Rembrandt, who took his own life at only 32 due to economic problems, then the death of his daughter Deanice in 1932 and that of his wife three years later. He then moved to Molsheim, in Alsace, where since 1909 his son Ettore has been running his famous automobile company, Bugatti. In 1939, he witnessed the fatal accident of his grandson, Gianoberto Bugatti, known as "Jean", Ettore's eldest son, who died during the test of a racing model of the company. He died in April 1940, shortly before the German invasion; he is buried in the cemetery of Dettwiller.