# Desk Chair > Carlo Bugatti - ca. 1902 > Canonical HTML: https://iconotheca.com/artworks/carlo-bugatti/bugatti-desk-chair-met/ > Published by Servola Systems GmbH. Last verified: 2026-09-25 ## Tombstone - **Artist:** Carlo Bugatti - **Date:** ca. 1902 - **Medium:** Walnut, brass, vellum, and pewter - **Dimensions:** 76.2 x 44.5 cm (30 x 17 1/2 in); seat diameter 44.5 cm, no separate depth published because the base is circular - **Object type:** Furniture - **Period:** Italian Art Nouveau, early 20th century - **Current location:** The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Department of Modern and Contemporary Art - **Attribution:** accepted ## Summary A walnut desk chair of about 1902, its round seat and back panel sheathed in vellum and bordered with hammered pewter, signed 'Bugatti' on the back and bought by the Metropolitan Museum in 1970 together with a matching desk and settee from a Paris dealer. It belongs to the vocabulary of curved, insect-and-flower-painted vellum furniture that won Carlo Bugatti the top award at the 1902 Turin exhibition, though no source consulted confirms that this particular chair was one of the pieces shown there.Almost nothing is documented about where the chair spent the seven decades between leaving Bugatti's Milan workshop and surfacing at Galerie du Luxembourg in Paris, the dealer from whom the Museum bought it. The Museum's own current website no longer flags the object, or any of its four sibling Bugatti pieces, as public domain, even though the Museum donated a CC0-licensed photograph of this exact chair to Wikimedia Commons in 2017. That photograph is the one this record uses.Carlo Bugatti is now most often introduced, in casual writing, as the father of the car maker Ettore Bugatti and the sculptor Rembrandt Bugatti. This record treats that overshadowing as a documented fact about how his reputation is framed today, not as a licence to blur the three men's very different work. ## Provenance Every link carries a grade. `documented` means a cited source supports it, `disputed` means the identification is argued but not established, `unknown` means we have no owner for that span and have not bridged it. - **ca. 1902** Carlo Bugatti workshop, Milan (Via Castelfiardo 6) `[documented]` (manufacture) Dated ca. 1902 and signed 'Bugatti' on the seat back, per the Metropolitan Museum's own catalogue entry. - **ca. 1902-by 1970** Unknown `[unknown]` (gap) No owner, sale, or exhibition is documented for this interval in the sources consulted. Bugatti's Milan workshop closed after 1902 and he left for Paris in 1904; whether the chair left the workshop before or after that closure is not established. - **unknown-1970** Galerie du Luxembourg, Paris (dealer) `[documented]` (dealer stock) The Museum's own catalogue entry names Galerie du Luxembourg, Paris, as the immediate prior owner before the 1970 sale to the Met. How long the gallery had held the piece and where it acquired it are not stated. - **1970-present** The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York `[documented]` (purchase) Bought with the Rogers Fund in 1970, together with a matching desk (1970.181.3) and settee (1970.181.1a-d) from the same dealer in the same transaction. The price paid has not been published in the sources consulted. ## Literature - Vittorio Pica, L'Arte decorativa all'esposizione di Torino del 1902 (Bergamo: Istituto Italiano d'Arti Grafiche, 1903) - the standard contemporary Italian critical account of the exhibition at which Bugatti showed. NOT read in full; the Internet Archive copy's full text could not be searched inside during this research pass. This is the first item to obtain for this record, and the most likely place to find a genuine period description of the critical reaction to Bugatti's rooms. ## Open questions - Was this specific chair among the pieces Bugatti exhibited at Turin in 1902, or made afterward in the same idiom for sale? No source consulted confirms either answer. - Who owned the chair between its manufacture around 1902 and its appearance in the stock of Galerie du Luxembourg, Paris, the dealer from whom the Met bought it in 1970? Nothing is documented for that interval. - How long had Galerie du Luxembourg held the three-piece Bugatti group before 1970, and where had the gallery sourced them? - What did the Metropolitan Museum pay for the chair, desk and settee together in 1970? The purchase price is not published in the sources consulted. - Why is the Museum's other Bugatti chair (accession 1986.448.1) catalogued as American in culture and held in The American Wing rather than with this piece and its siblings in Modern and Contemporary Art? - Why does the Metropolitan Museum's own current Open Access API return isPublicDomain: false and no image for this object and all four other Bugatti pieces, when the Museum itself donated a CC0-licensed photograph of this exact chair to Wikimedia Commons in 2017? Is this a deliberate rights withdrawal or a data-migration gap? The Museum has not published an explanation in the sources consulted. - Was Carlo Bugatti born in 1855 or 1856? The Metropolitan Museum's own artist record gives 1855; most other sources consulted give 1856. - What did Italian and international critics actually write about Bugatti's rooms at Turin in 1902? Vittorio Pica's contemporary account almost certainly answers this in detail, but its full text could not be searched during this research pass. ## Sources - [1] The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Open Access Collection API, object record for 'Desk chair' by Carlo Bugatti, accession 1970.181.2 (object ID 480706), queried directly 2026-08-07. The Museum's own rendered object page returned repeated HTTP 429 errors during this research pass; the API record and cached search-index text were used in its place. - [2] The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Open Access Collection API, object record for 'Desk' by Carlo Bugatti, accession 1970.181.3 (object ID 480707). - [3] The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Open Access Collection API, object record for 'Settee' by Carlo Bugatti, accession 1970.181.1a-d (object ID 480705). - [4] The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Open Access Collection API, object record for 'Secretary' by Carlo Bugatti, accession 69.69 (object ID 489826). - [5] The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Open Access Collection API, object record for 'Chair' attributed to Carlo Bugatti, accession 1986.448.1 (object ID 1665). - [6] Wikimedia Commons, File:Desk chair MET 1970.181.2,3.jpg, donated by the Metropolitan Museum of Art as part of its Open Access Initiative, licensed CC0, extmetadata LicenseShortName verified directly via the Commons API. - [7] Sotheby's, 'The Cobra Chairs of Carlo Bugatti, Pioneer of 20th Century Design'. - [8] National Gallery of Victoria, 'Carlo Bugatti's Chair, from the Snail Room'. - [9] Sworder's, 'The Life and Work of Carlo Bugatti (1856-1940)'. - [10] Wikipedia, 'Carlo Bugatti'. Tertiary source, flagged for replacement with a scholarly monograph (Dan Klein's or Nancy McClelland's writing on Bugatti was sought per the research brief but not located in a form this record could fetch and cite directly in this pass). - [11] Wikipedia, 'Prima Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte Decorativa Moderna'. Tertiary source, flagged for replacement with the exhibition's own catalogue or Vittorio Pica's contemporary review. - [12] Art & Antiques Magazine, 'Carlo Bugatti: Furnishing a Fantasy'. - [13] 1stDibs / The Study, 'Carlo Bugatti's 1902 Chair Is a Masterful Cultural Mash-Up'. - [14] Aucties.com, 'Value and quotation of Carlo Bugatti's artworks, furniture and objects'. - [15] Invaluable.com, 'Ettore Bugatti Sold at Auction Prices' - checked specifically for furniture misattributed to Ettore Bugatti; none found among the listings reviewed. - [16] Sotheby's, lot page, 'Carlo Bugatti, Chair', Design sale, 2020, used for comparable market data (estimate USD 4,000-6,000 for a related ca. 1910 chair). - [17] Wikimedia Commons, File:Carlo bugatti, cobra chair, milano 1902.jpg, photograph by Sailko at the Art Institute of Chicago, licensed CC BY 3.0. Used only as a version/comparison image, explicitly marked as not this record's object. - [18] Internet Archive, Vittorio Pica, L'Arte decorativa all'esposizione di Torino del 1902 (Bergamo, 1903). Item record consulted for scope and provenance; full text not searched inside during this research pass. --- Images on this record are public domain or CC0 and are hosted by us. No image on this site is generated or simulated. If you quote this record, quote the provenance grades with it.