All in the family

Carlo Bugatti believed that any object could be a work of art, paving the way for his children, elegant Rembrandt and genial Ettore, to sculpt supple, predatory panthers and craft automotive masterpieces. Charles Harris traces their lives

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BUGATTI is an evocative name. For some, it means magnificent cars; for others, the bronzes of a great animal sculptor; for a few, it is exotic furniture. However, there is a common theme—all are manifestations of art of a high order, from a brilliantly talented family.

Carlo Bugatti (1856-1940), son of an architect, opened the Artistici Fantasia studio in Milan, Italy, in 1880. The name did not mislead. He produced extraordinary, novel furniture, often complex and asymmetrical—using wood, metal, silk, ivorine and vellum and combining Art Nouveau with Islamic and Japanese influences. Perhaps the best-known example of his original approach is his Throne chair. Some pieces—the Cobra seats—were sinuously simple, others charmingly delicate.

Highly successful, he won many international awards and counted composer Giacomo Puccini as a customer and a friend. With bewildering versatility, Carlo also designed ceramics, musical instruments, jewellery and his own clothes. He exhibited at London's Earl's Court in 1888 and created a flamboyant Arabian Nights-style bedroom for the aesthete Cyril Flower, Lord Battersea, in which it must have been difficult to sleep. In 1903, Carlo moved his family to Paris, France, heart of the Belle Époque, and there made intricate, decorative silverware, now highly prized.

‘Any object,’ he emphasised, ‘no matter what its function, can be made a work of art.’

His sons, Ettore and Rembrandt, inherited his talents, but with greater focus. Rembrandt's life (1894-1916) was brief, but sufficient to establish his current reputation as an outstanding, innovative sculptor. Tall, elegant of dress and manner, with dark hair falling over his forehead, he often preferred the company of animals to that of people. He frequented the Paris menagerie and the zoological gardens in Antwerp, observing: ‘The zoo is my only comfort... the creatures... are my faithful friends.’ Animals were his