Lambert-Sigisbert Adam

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Lambert-Sigisbert Adam, by Jean-Baptiste Perronneau , 1753, oil on canvas, Paris, Louvre. One of Perronneau's two portraits for admission to the Académie Royale

Lambert-Sigisbert Adam (born October 10, 1700 in Nancy , Duchy of Lorraine , today France , † May 13, 1759 in Paris ) was a French sculptor of the Baroque and preparer of the Rococo , who was particularly popular with his contemporaries for his statues in the gardens of the Palaces of Versailles and Sanssouci was famous.

Adam family home, rue des Dominicains, Nancy

Lambert-Sigisbert Adam - and Adam l'aîné called, that "Adam, the Elder" - was in Nancy, the eldest of three sons of the equally renowned sculptor Jacob-Sigisbert Adam (* 1670 , † 1747 ) into a veritable sculptor dynasty born .

education

He completed his training with his father in the workshops in Metz and Paris in the studio of François Dumont . After winning the coveted grand prix de sculpture in 1723 , Lambert-Sigisbert went to Rome for ten years on the basis of the associated scholarship to perfect his arts there at the Académie de France à Rome .

Study and work in Rome

There he came under the influence of the sculptor Gian Lorenzo Bernini , who was highly valued in Rome at the time , and whose expressive figurative language also shines through in many of Adam's works.

During his stay he was considered the protégé of Cardinal Melchior de Polignac , the French ambassador to the Vatican , for whom he copied and restored some ancient statues . It is certain that he restored the clothing of around a dozen statues from the alleged "Villa of Marius ". During this period he was elected as a member of the Accademia di San Luca around 1732.

In the course of his long study in Rome, he acquired a technique and sensitivity that marked the further transition from Baroque to Rococo . Proof of this are his preferences for arranged water scenes and the immediate "emergence" of fateful sculptures from water fountains or allegories .

If Adam had won the competition to design the Trevi Fountain in 1731 , Adam could have lived out this tendency in particular. But he remained inferior to the older compatriot Edmé Bouchardon , who had also been on the Tiber for a long time . However, Bouchardon could not enjoy his success either, since Pope Clement XII. could not bring himself to follow the choice of his jury and thus commissioned the Italian architect Nicola Salvi with the design of the Fontana de Trevi .

Lambert-Sigisbert Adam coped with this defeat well, as he received a number of other commissions in Rome, such as a relief for the Orsini chapel in San Giovanni in Lateran .

Commissions for the French and Prussian courts

Triomphe de Neptune et d'Amphitrite, Versailles, 1740
Allegory of the air, 2 nymphs with a hunted heron

After his return home, Lambert-Sigisbert continued to work as a team with his younger brother Nicolas Sébastien Adam (1705–1778). They received several orders from the French royal court for the large-format decorative furnishing of the king's gardens. Her best-known work in this project was the design of the central group in the Basin of Neptune in the palace complex of Versailles (Triomphe de Neptune et d'Amphitrite, 1740). Even their contemporaries praised them for the cascades of the castle of Saint-Cloud ( "La Seine et La Marne" ), which were destroyed by the Prussians in 1870 during the fighting of the Franco-German War . For admission to the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture in 1737, he created a Neptune who calms the troubled waves with his trident ( Louvre ).

Both Adams worked indirectly for Frederick the Great in the complex of the Palais von Sanssouci in Potsdam (Allegory of the Air, 1749). Louis XV Frederick II had given those sculptures as a gift, as he could no longer find a place for them in some of his own gardens. The youngest of the brothers, François Gaspard Adam , on the other hand, subsequently even became the court sculptor of the Prussian king.

For a long time Lambert-Sigisbert was thought to have been less successful with his portrait studies for a bust with the idealizing portrayal of " Ludwig XIV. As Apollo " ( Terracotta , Victoria and Albert Museum , London ), although the attribution was credibly questioned as early as the 1980s.

Adam family

Hailing from Lorraine , the Adams belonged to a long line of bronze casters and sculptors in Nancy. On their mother's side, the three brothers were uncles of the also very well-known sculptor Claude Michel, who was generally only called Clodion . Lambert-Sigisbert Adam took over his training in Paris until his untimely death.

Works

Sculptures

Gable of the Hôtel de Soubise
  • La Douleur (1732), bust, marble, Rome, Accademia di San Luca
  • Apparition de la Vierge à saint André Corsini (1732), marble, Rome, Basilica of San Giovanni in Lateran
  • La Seine et La Marne (1733–1734), marble, Saint-Cloud, Park of Saint-Cloud
  • Neptune calmant les flots irrités also called Neptune calmant la tempête, accompagné d'un triton (1737), ensemble, marble, Paris, Louvre
  • together with his brother Nicolas Sébastien Adam , Le Triomphe de Neptune et d'Amphitrite (1735–1740), Blei, Versailles, Châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon
  • also together with his brother Nicolas Sébastien Adam, exterior and interior decoration of the Hôtel de Soubise (1735–1739), Paris
  • L'Air , also called Diane chasseresse or La Chasse (1749), marble, Potsdam, Palais von Sanssouci
  • La Pêche (1739–1749), marble, Potsdam, Palais von Sanssouci
  • La Poésie (1752), statue, marble, Paris, Louvre: commissioned by Madame de Pompadour for the vestibule in Châteaux Bellevue
  • Portrait of Louis XV as Apollo, bust, Nancy, Musée lorrain
  • Putti with lobster, small statuette, bronze, London, Heim Gallery
  • Saint Jérôme , Paris, Invalides

Treatises

  • Lambert Sigisbert Adam, Collection de sculptures antiques grecques, et romaines, trouvées à Rome dans les ruines des romaines, trouvées à Rome…, Paris 1753.

literature

  • Geneviève Bresc-Bautier, Isabelle Leroy-Jay Lemaistre (sous la direction de Jean-René Gaborit, avec la collaboration de Jean-Charles Agboton, Hélène Grollemund, Michèle Lafabrie, Béatrice Tupinier-Barillon), Musée du Louvre. département des sculptures du Moyen Âge, de la Renaissance et des temps moderne. Sculpture française II. Renaissance et temps modern. vol. 1 Adam – Gois, Éditions de la Réunion des musées nationaux, Paris, 1998.
  • Erika Langmuir, The Pan Art Dictionary. Volume One - 1300-1800. Pan Books Ltd. : London 1989, ISBN 0-330-30923-4 .
  • Jean de Viguerie, Histoire et dictionnaire du temps des Lumières. 1715–1789, Paris, Robert Laffont, coll. Bouquins 2003, ISBN 2221048105 .

Web links

Commons : Lambert-Sigisbert Adam  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Erika Langmuir: The Pan Art Dictionary. Volume One - 1300-1800. Pan Books Ltd., London 1989, p. 3f.
  2. ↑ Erika Langmuir: The Pan Art Dictionary. Volume One - 1300-1800. Pan Books Ltd., London 1989, p. 45.
  3. ↑ Figure at www.artandarchitecture.org.uk
  4. ^ Illustration in the online catalog of the Louvre
  5. ↑ Figure at www.artandarchitecture.org.uk
  6. ↑ Figure at www.artandarchitecture.org.uk
  7. ^ Illustration in the online catalog of the Louvre
personal data
SURNAME Adam, Lambert-Sigisbert
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Adam l'aîné
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French neo-baroque sculptor
DATE OF BIRTH October 10, 1700
PLACE OF BIRTH Nancy , France
DATE OF DEATH May 13, 1759
Place of death Paris , France