Born in 1884 in Milan, Rembrandt Bugatti was an Italian animal sculptor who died in 1916 in Paris.
The son of the decorator and architect Carlo Bugatti, Rembrandt Bugatti was also the younger brother of Ettore Bugatti, the founder of the famous Bugatti car company.
In 1903, at the age of 19, Rembrandt settled in Paris and signed an exclusive contract with the publisher and foundry owner Adrien-Aurélien Hébrard, who imposed a strictly limited and numbered production of exceptional quality.
Enthralled by the animal world, Bugatti initially found his inspiration in the zoological park of the Jardin des Plantes in Paris and then in the Antwerp Zoo in Belgium, which at the time was considered the world’s foremost zoo.
During 15 years, Bugatti lived alongside the wild animals. His sculptures grew completely out of this day-to-day contact.
During World War I, the most dangerous wild animals (carnivores) of the Antwerp Zoo were slaughtered.
Suffering from tuberculosis and in financial straits, Bugatti committed suicide at the age of 32. He left behind him a powerful and dynamic body of work that is both universal and timeless.
In 1911, in a letter written to his brother Ettore, Rembrandt Bugatti had written: ‘be wicked to people, kind to your wife, God to your children and good to animals …’.
Website: http://www.bugatti.com/tradition/history/#/layer=http://www.bugatti.com/index.php?id=229&L=0