two with openwork moulded rocaille arches decorated with flowers enclosing the central dial from above and below, the dial being additionally framed by a drapery and blooming branches, on the lower rocaille arch sits a putto or a genius on the left and a rooster on the right, the guilloché dial is signed "S. Syre, Vienna", porcelain, white glazed and fire-gilt dial, measurements 21 x 19.5 cm, designed by Franz Anton Bustelli (1723–1763), the facing side over the dial with impressed mark lozenge shield of the Nymphenburg Manufactory, the reverse side with red lacquer inventory no. 40/377, minor chipping to the edges of the rocailles, (GO)

Provenance:
Bruno Levi Collection, Bavarian National Museum (inv-nr. 40/337), restituted sale Christie’s on 2 July 1956, sale Christie’s on 11 April 1980 “Collection of Nelson A. Rockefeller”, lot 139
South German private ownership

Literature:
Cf. Rückert, Rainer: Franz Anton Bustelli, Munich 1963, cat. no. 45.
Ziffer, Alfred: Nymphenburger Porzellan, Die Sammlung Bäuml, Stuttgart 1997, cat. no. 734.

This cartel clock of the porcelain manufactory Nymphenburg after a design of Franz Anton Bustelli (172-163) is an extraordinary rarity.
The arguments for this lie in the artistic work of Bustelli, as well as in the special provenance, among other things from the collection of Nelson A. Rockefeller.
Bustelli created from 1754 almost exclusively around 150 figures in his characteristic playful style for the Nymphenburg Manufactory. On the other hand, few Bustelli porcelains outside the category of figurines have survived or been secured. Besides the overall compositional quality of the design and the details characteristic of Bustelli, such as the flat rocaille-shaped volutes with their oval openings, the "volutes à oves percées", the pose and style of the putto can also be compared with a large number of putti designed by Bustelli, among others the figure "Putto with peacock as Juno". Also hidden behind the putto, which is to be interpreted as the genius of the time, and the rooster, as a reminder of the intellectual striving of study "until the first cockcrow", is an intellectual program derived from the French gilded bronzes.
Thus, this rare cartel clock made of porcelain clearly fits into the oeuvre of Franz Anton Bustelli in its graceful formal language and intellectual symbolism.