Pajou, Augustin

Pajou, Augustin (b Paris, 18 Sept. 1730; d Paris, 8 May 1809).
French sculptor, a pupil of J.-B. Lemoyne the Younger. He won the Prix de Rome in 1748 and was in Italy from 1752 to 1756. After his return to Paris he had a successful and varied career, aided by his industrious and amiable character; Louis XV and his mistress Mme du Barry were among his patrons, but in spite of his royal connections he successfully negotiated the French Revolution. His output included portrait busts, among them several of fellow artists (Hubert Robert, 1789, École des Beaux-Arts, Paris), mythological works, notably the seductive Psyche Abandoned (completed 1790, Louvre, Paris), and the elegant sculptural decoration of the opera house at Versailles (1768–70), which Sir Michael Levey describes as ‘the most attractive monument to his basically thin talents’ (Painting and Sculpture in France: 1700–1789, 1993). The sculptor Clodion was his son-in-law.