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Chair
(1902)
Medium
wood, painted and gilt vellum, copper
Measurements
97.0 × 45.0 × 40.0 cm
Credit Line
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Purchased with the assistance of Paula Fox, the NGV Women's Association and the NGV Supporters of Decorative Arts, 2008
Gallery location
18th & 19th Century Decorative Arts & Paintings Gallery
Level 2, NGV International
About this work
This chair design was first exhibited in Carlo Bugatti’s ‘Snail Room’ interior at the First International Exhibition of Modern Decorative Arts in Turin in 1902. Bugatti exhibited four interiors, all of which represented a major shift in his design aesthetic from the 1890s. Within a few years Bugatti had transformed his heavy, rectilinear furniture into plastic, curvilinear forms entirely wrapped in vellum. This chair dispenses with chair legs, incorporating the seat and back rest into one resolved, sinuous form. The radical design anticipates the cantilevered chair forms in tubular steel by Mart Stam, Marcel Breuer and Mies van der Rohe of the 1920s.
Artwork Details
Place/s of Execution
Milan, Lombardy, Italy
Inscription
inscribed in red paint on rear of backrest c.: Bugatti
Accession Number
2008.96
Department
International Decorative Arts
This digital record has been made available on NGV Collection Online through the generous support of Digitisation Champion Ms Carol Grigor through Metal Manufactures Limited