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Bustelli, Franz Anton
(b Locarno, ?1723; d Munich, April 1763). German porcelain modeller of Swiss birth. Although little is known about his early life, he is recorded as joining the Neudeck factory near Munich in November 1754 as Modellmeister; the factory was later moved to the Nymphenburg Palace, from which it then took its name. From that time until his death he produced one of the most remarkable series of porcelain figures ever modelled. Beginning with small Ovidian gods (e.g. Flora, 1755–8; Frankfurt am Main, Mus. Ksthandwk), nude putti with various classical attributes on fairly simple bases, he then made a series of figures of street vendors including an egg seller (e.g. c. 1755; Hamburg, Mus. Kst & Gew.) and a mushroom seller. These early figures do not reflect the full Rococo movement of Bustelli’s later work. They do, however, display one essential characteristic of his entire oeuvre: a tendency to conceive his figures with faceted planiform surfaces, more reminiscent of wood-carving than clay-modelling, which may suggest that he was trained as a wood-carver. His figures seem to carry on in porcelain the rich traditions of the south German Rococo, and his first major compositions, including a Crucifix, a Virgin and a St John, are all in the direct tradition of south German ecclesiastical sculpture; at one time they were even ascribed to the sculptor Ignaz Gunther.
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