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Carlo Bugatti, designer

Desk and Chair, ca. 1900

Now On View

Description

Maker

Title

Desk and Chair

Year

ca. 1900

Medium

Walnut, ebonized wood, vellum, pewter, ivory, brass, and silk cording and tassels

Type

Credit

Helen M. Danforth Acquisition Fund

Object Number

2014.27ab

Exhibition History

Exhibition History

Modern and Contemporary Galleries

An eclectic mix of North African, Moorish, and Middle Eastern aesthetics, this desk and table are the creation of Italian designer Carlo Bugatti. Trained at the Academy des Beaux Arts in Paris as an architect, Bugatti is best known for extraordinary furniture designs which typically include diverse materials such as parchment, exotic woods, and a mix of metals.

The horseshoe arch above the mirrored niche in the desk's center recalls the architecture of North Africa, where the designer traveled in the 1880s, while the inlaid pewter characters on the drawer fronts imaginatively imitate Japanese and Islamic calligraphy.

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Use

The images on this website can enable discovery and collaboration and support new scholarship, and we encourage their use. This object is in the public domain (CC0 1.0). This object is Desk and Chair with the accession number of 2014.27ab. To request high-resolution files or new photography, please send an email to imagerequest@risd.edu and include your name and the object's accession number.