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Quarti Eugenio (Villa D’Almè -BG 1867 – Milano 1929).

 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 his own country 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, and after a few months Quarti had established himself in a small workshop in Via Donizetti. He became immersed in the thriving artistic life of late 19th-century Milan, encouraged by the enlightened teaching at the school of the Societ? Umanitaria, 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 are more restrained. An article (1899) 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.