AN INDIAN ROSEWOOD, SILVER AND MOTHER-OF-PEARL WRITING DESK, CIRCA 1898

One of Italy's foremost furniture makers Eugenio Quarti was born into a family of craftsmen and at age 14 apprenticed to a furniture maker in Paris. He returned to Italy in the late 1880s and spent a few weeks in Milan in the studio of Carlo Bugatti, whose exotic and extravagant designs had a lasting influence on him. After a few months Quarti had established himself in a small workshop in Via Donizetti and later married Bugatti's daughter. He became immersed in the thriving artistic life of late 19th-century Milan and was encouraged and enlightened by the teaching at the school of the SocietUmanitaria, where design courses were based on social issues, and where he himself later taught. In 1888 Quarti met Vittore Grubicy de Dragon, a painter and enthusiastic supporter of the avant-garde, whose views on beauty and taste influenced the young designer. Quarti's earliest works, several of which were exhibited to much acclaim at the Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte Decorativa in Turin in 1898, were exquisitely carved individual pieces: desks, sideboards and wardrobes in mahogany, inlaid with mother-of-pearl or silver. The influence of Bugatti is evident, although Quarti's designs tend to be more refined. An 1899 article by Vittorio Pica praises Quarti's unique designs for being neither too imitative of northern European Art Nouveau nor too austere, but instead appealing to Italian taste and the needs of modern living.