QUARTI, Eugenio

Italian cabinetmaker and interior designer. He was born into a family of carpenters and, at 14, was apprenticed to a cabinetmaker in Paris. When he returned to Italy in the late 1880s, he was already a highly-skilled craftsman. He spent a few weeks in Milan at 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 called Quarti-Casati.

At the Antwerp World Exposition in 1894, he was awarded a silver medal as “a designer of fanciful furniture in an arborizing style.” At the Turin exposition of 1898, he won the gold medal. His official successes reached a pinnacle at the Esposizione Internazionale d’Arte Decorativa (1906) in Milan, where he won the Premio Reale and a gold medal for a divan he submitted.

As a successful furniture designer, he was able to expand his business in 1904, after which date he also took part in furnishing larger buildings. He received several major commissions to furnish whole interiors, notably for the Palazzo Castiglioni, Corso Venezia 47, Milan (1901-03), built by Giuseppe Sommaruga, with ironwork by Alessandro Mazzucotelli (1865-1938). Together they created the best Italian expression of floral Art Nouveau, inspired by, but not imitative of, northern models. After 1910 Quarti favoured light woods, particularly lime, to which he would add veneers and inlays made of other woods. He responded to changing taste, moved away from Art Nouveau, and employed his fine craftsmanship to create the more angular forms associated with Art Deco.

By 1905, Quarti-Casati had taken on the proportions of a small industrial business with a rapidly expanding customer base. After Quart died in 1929, his son Mario Quarti (1901-1974) adapted the Quarti workshop to the more demanding and large-scale commissions required by an ever more varied and rich clientele.