Adam, the son of the sculptor Jacob-Sigisbert Adam, won the Grand Prix at the Académie Royale in 1723, studied in Italy and was admitted to the Academy on his return to Paris in 1737. In 1744 he was appointed a professor at the Academy and, together with his brother Balthazar (1710-1761) and Nicolas-Sébastien (1705-1778), pursued a successful career as a sculptor.
The present drawing is an interesting examples of his work on the domestic scale of which little is known. The drawing, which Fuhring dates 1735-40, appears to be a life-size design and would probably have been executed in chased and gilded bronze, and matched possibly by a companion piece of a nereid. A comparable pair of andirons were last recorded in 1936, J.P. van Goidsenhoven, Six mois d'art au Rijksmuseum d'Amsterdam, L'Art Belge, 1936, 17, p. 93