Group, bronze, 'Boy with a lobster', after Lambert-Sigisbert Adam, French, model ca. 1740, cast 19th c.

Bronze group consisting of a nude infant boy, seated on a shell and with his left arm raised up beside his head, who is weeping as he draws back in alarm from a lobster which is attached to the little finger of his right hand.

A plaster model for a figure of this description was shown in the 1740 Salon, with a reference to a pendant group of a small girl holding a bird in her hands (and in fact, in the Salon following year, Adam exhibited a plaster group with a slightly different description - incorporating a young tiger which the girl is preventing from jumping on a bird - as the pendant to this little boy and lobster). Both of these models, of 1740 and 1741, were intended at the time to be cast in bronze for an indoor fountain. Another bronze version was on the Paris art market in April 2015 (letter from Patricia Lemonnier 20 April 2015; in object file).

A marble of this description ('a small child, in marble, sitting on a shell, playing with a lobster which is biting him'), signed and dated 'Lam. Sigisbert Adam, inv. et fac. 1750' was exhibited in the Salon of 1750. According to both Thirion (1885) and Lami (1910) this was made for the Comte d'Argenson. Thirion says that it was at the Chateau de Neuilly in 1885. Lami states that it was later in the gardens of Bagatelle (and subsequently in the collections of Rodolphe Kann, and Marquis de Feronnays, respectively). A number of casts of this model survive, and examination of this bronze suggests that it is a nineteenth century cast.

Bought from Mr. C. Humphris for £350.

Thought to be a 19th c cast after a sculpture of 1740-50 by Lambert-Sigisbert Adam (1700-1759)

A plaster model for a figure of this description was shown by Adam, the elder of sculptor brothers, in the 1740 Salon in Paris, and the following year a plaster model of a companion piece with a small girl and a bird was shown by him. Both of these models, of 1740 and 1741, were intended at the time to be cast in bronze for an indoor fountain. Adam excelled in decorative sculpture and one of his greatest works was a huge group of Neptune and Amphrite, amongst a swirling group of assorted sea creatures, completed in 1740, for the garden at Versailles.

A marble of this description ('a small child, in marble, sitting on a shell, playing with a lobster which is biting him'), signed and dated 'Lam. Sigisbert Adam, inv. et fac. 1750' was exhibited in the Salon of 1750. This was made for the Comte d'Argenson. It was later in the gardens of Bagatelle. A number of later casts of this model survive, and examination of this bronze suggests that it is a nineteenth century cast.

A.18-1960