During World War I, he volunteered for paramedical work at a military hospital in Antwerp, an experience that triggered in Bugatti the onset of depression, aggravated by financial problems, which eventually caused him to commit suicide on 8 January 1916 in Paris, France when he was 31 years old.

As a child, he hung around his father's workshop and was encouraged to try sculpting in plasticine by a family friend, Russian sculptor Prince Paolo Troubetzkoy (1866–1938).

Bugatti's love of nature led to him spending a great deal of time in the wildlife sanctuary near the Jardin des Plantes in Paris or at the Antwerp Zoo, where he studied the features and movement of exotic animals.

[2] One of the Bugatti pieces was reported sold apparently as part of a group of sculptures (with three Rodin and a Noguchi) for an aggregate of $20 million.

At the same time, Antwerp Zoo was forced, by feedstuff shortages, to start killing its animals, which deeply affected Bugatti because he had used many of them as subjects for his sculpture.