(b Nancy, 10 Oct 1700; d Paris, 12 May 1759). Son of (1) Jacob-Sigisbert Adam. He was a pupil of his father and finished his training in the Paris workshop of François Dumont. In 1723 he won the Prix de Rome. During his period in Rome, at the Académie de France, he was patronized by the influential Cardinal Melchior de Polignac, the French Ambassador to the Holy See, for whom he restored and copied antique sculpture. He contributed a relief of the Virgin Appearing to St Andrew Corsini to Clement XII’s Corsini Chapel at S Giovanni in Laterano (marble, c. 1732; in situ) and became a member of the Accademia di S Luca, presenting a bust of Sorrow (marble, 1732; in situ). He also entered the competition for the Trevi Fountain, but although his elaborate Baroque design (1731) was selected as the winner, Clement XII eventually commissioned the fountain from Nicola Salvi. After his return to Paris in 1733, Adam produced reclining statues personifying The Seine and The Marne rivers for the cascade at Saint-Cloud (1733–4; in situ). In 1737 he was received (reçu) as a member of the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture in Paris on presentation of the marble group Neptune Calming the Waves (1737; Paris, Louvre), sculpted in the manner of Bernini. In collaboration with his brother Nicolas-Sébastien he created the vast and riotous lead group the Triumph of Neptune and Amphitrite for the Bassin de Neptune in the park at Versailles (1735–40; in situ; see fig.); this is considered the most flamboyant Baroque sculpture to have been executed in 18th-century France, and it represents an eloquent testimony to Lambert-Sigisbert Adam’s interest in the art of Bernini.

Part of the Adam (i) family

• Adam (i), Lambert-Sigisbert
  • Adam (i)
  • France, §IV, 3: Sculpture, c 1600–c 1700
  • collaboration
    • Adam (i): (3) Nicolas-Sébastien Adam
  • competitions
    • Competition, §II, 2: Sculpture: France
  • patrons and collectors
    • Orléans, House of: (4) Louis, Duc d’Orléans
    • Polignac, Cardinal Melchior de
  • pupils
    • Clodion, §1: Training and Roman period, to 1771
    • Gillet, Nicolas-François
    • La Rue, de: (2) Louis-Félix Delarue
  • works
    • France, §IV, 4: Sculpture, c 1700–c 1814
    • Montpellier
    • Versailles, §2: Gardens