Augustin Pajou

Bust of Michel-Jean Sedaine, 1775, The Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

Augustin Pajou (; 19 September 1730 – 8 May 1809) was a French sculptor, born in Paris. At eighteen he won the Prix de Rome, and at thirty exhibited his Pluton tenant Cerbère enchaîné (now in the Louvre).

Selected works Pajou's portrait busts of Buffon and of Madame du Barry (1773), and his statuette of Bossuet (all in the Louvre), are amongst his best works. Pajou was commissioned by Napoleon to make the copies of the Medici Lions now situated in the garden of the Villa Medici 1803. Pajou died in Paris on 8 May 1809. Museum of Fine Arts, Lyon, France, Musée des Augustins (Toulouse, France), Musée des Beaux-arts, Nantes, France, Musée National du Château, Pau, France, the National Gallery of Art (Washington D.C.), the National Gallery of Australia (Canberra) and the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium are among the public collections holding sculpture by Augustin Pajou.

Children Jacques-Augustin-Catherine Pajou (1766–1828), painter Catherine Flore Pajou, known as "Tante Cocotte" by her brother. She married the sculptor Claude Michel, but he was far older than she was and marriage proved unhappy, ending in divorce. From Montpellier, in his friend Riban's house, where he had gone in year III, Augustin wrote to his son: "This good captive embraces you, unlike the sister whose negligence is not worth this mark of your friendship. I say nothing of the advantages of this article, for a sheaf of paper would not suffice to describe all the complaints we have made against her, and if she has a conscience, she must sense that we have great reason." In 1795 she remarried to Pierre-Louis Martin, known as Saint-Martin who, after several careers, died in Liège as conseiller to the Cour d'Appel. An amateur artist and collector, Saint-Martine produced several paintings of the city of Liège and had his portrait painted by Philippe-Auguste Hennequin. Flore divorced her second husband in year 10 and died on 9 December 1841 at 30 rue de l'Odéon in Paris.