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Lot Essay
For a discussion of Bustelli's Chinese figures, see Fritz Bäuml, Einiges über Nymphenburger Chinesen, Keramos, 10th October 1960, pp. 7-12. A similar example in the Bäuml Collection, Schloss Nymphenburg, inv. no. A39, is un-decorated and of later date.
Although Bustelli's Commedia dell'Arte series is the summit of Nymphenburg's achievements, Bustelli's method of working in wood is perhaps best seen in his series of Chinese figures where the planiform treatment of their clothes is remarkably powerful. Among the rarest of his Chinese figures, only one other coloured example (in Dresden) of this figure is known to exist. For the white example in the Bäuml Collection, see Alfred Ziffer, Nymphenburger Porzellan, Sammlung Bäuml, Schloss Nymphenburg Catalogue, Munich (Stuttgart, 1997), p. 56, no. 81, and see the example, also un-decorated, illustrated by Friedrich Hofmann, Geschichte der Porzellan-Manufaktur Nymphenburg (Leipzig, 1923), Vol. I. p. 94.
Although Bustelli's Commedia dell'Arte series is the summit of Nymphenburg's achievements, Bustelli's method of working in wood is perhaps best seen in his series of Chinese figures where the planiform treatment of their clothes is remarkably powerful. Among the rarest of his Chinese figures, only one other coloured example (in Dresden) of this figure is known to exist. For the white example in the Bäuml Collection, see Alfred Ziffer, Nymphenburger Porzellan, Sammlung Bäuml, Schloss Nymphenburg Catalogue, Munich (Stuttgart, 1997), p. 56, no. 81, and see the example, also un-decorated, illustrated by Friedrich Hofmann, Geschichte der Porzellan-Manufaktur Nymphenburg (Leipzig, 1923), Vol. I. p. 94.