Franz Anton Bustelli

Franz Anton Bustelli (12 April 1723 – 18 April 1763) was a Swiss-born German modeller for the Bavarian Nymphenburg Porcelain Manufactory from 1754 to his death in 1763. He is widely regarded as the finest modeller of porcelain in the Rococo style: "if the art of European porcelain finds its most perfect expression in the rococo style, so the style finds its most perfect expression in the work of Bustelli".^[2]

Bustelli was born in Locarno in Italian-speaking Switzerland, and died in Munich, Bavaria, just after his 40th birthday. Few details of his life are known, but he trained as a sculptor, probably mostly in wood,^[3] in Italy. He spoke and wrote German fluently, and may have grown up in Bavaria.