Augustin Pajou Artwork valuations, appraisals and auction estimates

Augustin Pajou was a French sculptor and decorator, known primarily for busts of contemporary famous people such as his patron, Madame du Barry. He is also remembered for directing the decoration work at the Versailles Opera.
Pajou, a pupil of the sculptor Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne, won the Prix de Rome in 1748 and studied in Italy from 1752 to 1756. Read the full biography

Augustin Pajou was a French sculptor and decorator, known primarily for busts of contemporary famous people such as his patron, Madame du Barry. He is also remembered for directing the decoration work at the Versailles Opera.
Pajou, a pupil of the sculptor Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne, won the Prix de Rome in 1748 and studied in Italy from 1752 to 1756. In 1760 he was elected to the Paris Academy, where he executed bas-reliefs and small decorative objects in bronze, silver and marble. Later, he worked at the court of the Palais Royal in Paris and at the Orléans Cathedral. A directive from King Louis XVI to create statues honoring French greats led him to execute many busts, including those of well-known figures such as Georges Buffon, René Descartes and J.-B. Bossuet.
Appointed guardian of the king's antiquities in 1777, he was commissioned to complete the Fontaine des Innocents in Paris in the style of the 16th-century sculptor Jean Goujon. His “Psyche Abandoned" (1791) offers an example of his graceful and seductive style. Pajou died in Paris on 8 May 1809.