Auction Record: Cast and Attribution Details

Auction records provide the documentary trail for how this bust has been described in the market literature. The auction caption reviewed here includes a date reference and a foundry notation. These details are relevant because they show the specific language through which the 1920–1930 date was introduced and circulated. The foundry reference is also relevant to the question of posthumous casting: if the work was cast after Bugatti’s death in 1916, the casting date might account for a later market range even if the original portrait dates to an earlier period. The dossier does not resolve the cast-specific provenance question definitively. That remains an open research task.