Fratelli Pugi

Guglielmo Pugi is known for his genre sculpture in marble and alabaster. He founded his workshop in Florence from which he cultivated an international client base. This workshop later expanded to include his sons, Gino and Fiorenzo. Gino and Fiorenzo initially used the signature ‘Guglielmo Pugi e figli’ while working with their father, but eventually used the studio signature of ‘Fratelli G. e F. Pugi’ but apparently only from 1935 and with some variations. 

This period of variation in the sons’ studio signature may explain the signature on the present marble as ‘Fugi Filli’. The only piece by the sons in public collections in the UK is a Carrara-marble bust of Dante’s muse ‘Beatrice’ in Lancashire County Museums. This piece bears another variation on the signature ‘G.F. F.lli Pugi Firenze’.

RELATED LITERATURE

A. Panzetta, Nuovo dizionario degli scultori italiani dell’Ottocento e del primo Novecento, vol. 2. Turin: Adarte, 2003, p. 703