This rare writing desk and matching chair showcase Carlo Bugatti’s imaginative, eccentric brilliance - a strikingly unconventional choice for bold interior curators and collectors with a taste for the extraordinary.
Crafted around 1910, this beautiful ensemble showcases Bugatti’s signature fusion of materials and sculptural fantasy: walnut, vellum, pewter & bone intarsia, punched copper, and long silk tassels, all woven into forms that feel both ancient and futuristic.
The desk showcases six small drawers bearing enigmatic, glyph-like script, while punched copper elements wrap the desk in a sculptural skin. A vellum-clad pigeonhole in between the drawers softens the geometry. A large triangular drawer at the front carrying a lush silk tassel adds movement and refinement. The pieces feels like an artifact rescued from an invented civilization: lettering poured in pewter, stepped wooden decorative blocks, and hammered copper motifs revealing themselves as the light moves across the surface. The vellum on the top and inside the pigeon hole is the original and is left untouched.
The chair is equally captivating: with the well known circular ''gong'' suspended by rope between the wooden frame of the backrest, the geometric inlays, punched copper wrapped legs, and the three dramatic silk tassels. Every angle offers a new discovery.
Both pieces have been expertly restored by the Dutch Bugatti restoring specialist Jeroen van Koolwijk (Utrecht) preserving all authentic elements and reconstructing some of the decorations and the silk tassels. They are structurally sound - yet their essence is unmistakably artistic rather than utilitarian. Works created as art first, furniture second. Sculptural presences. Conversation-catchers. The kind of objects that anchor a room and define a collection.
Today’s top designers increasingly choose Bugatti pieces as bold accents in modern interiors. They alter the very mood of a room, adding mystery and elegance - lifting the entire interior - becoming the undeniable eye-catcher that reflects the bold taste of its owner.
Collector Bio: Carlo Bugatti
Carlo Bugatti (1856–1940) was one of the most imaginative designers of his time - a self-made visionary who rejected convention and invented an aesthetic entirely his own. Trained at the Brera Academy in Milan and connected to avant-garde circles in Paris, he blended Moorish, japoniste, symbolic, and wholly personal motifs into furniture of astonishing originality.
His mastery of mixed materials - vellum, pewter, bone, brass, copper, woods - and his unconventional ideas place him among the great eccentrics of design history. Today, his rare surviving pieces reside in major museums and elite private collections around the world.
This ensemble is perfect for designers and collectors who refuse the ordinary - those who shape spaces with vision, courage, and curiosity.
Creator
Carlo Bugatti
Manufacturer
Carlo Bugatti workshop
Design Period
1900s
Production Period
ca. 1910
Country of Manufacture
Italy
Identifying Marks
almost identical example of desk found in Bugatti,
Dejean, pg. 37 and Carlo Bugatti au musée d'Orsay
, Massé, pg. 95
Style
Art Nouveau, Applied Arts, Decorative Arts
Detailed Condition
Good - expertly restored
Restoration and Damage Details
Reconstructed tassels in silk (after the original). The so called ''piano keys'' in bone and wood have been completed. Minor construction work. Restorer: Jeroen van Koolwijk, Utrecht (more details available on request).
