Calliope

Art Historical Context

Augustin Pajou’s *Calliope*, carved around 1763, captures the Greek Muse of epic poetry in luminous white marble. Standing over five feet tall, the sculpture embodies the graceful elegance of mid-eighteenth-century French art, when artists looked back to classical antiquity for inspiration while infusing their figures with a lively, natural presence. Pajou, a leading sculptor at the court of Louis XV, worked during a period of transition from Rococo lightness toward the emerging Neoclassical style. In this marble, he demonstrates masterful technique by coaxing soft folds of drapery and delica...

About the Artist

Augustin Pajou · 1730–1809

Augustin Pajou (1730–1809) was one of the foremost French sculptors of the second half of the eighteenth century, whose long and distinguished career bridged the Rococo grace of the Ancien Régime and the more sober classicizing spirit that emerged in the revolutionary and Napoleonic periods. Born in Paris into a family with artistic connections — his father was an ornamental sculptor — Pajou showe...