Pauline Auzou (24 March 1775 – 15 May 1835) was a French painter and art instructor, who exhibited at the Paris Salon and was commissioned to make paintings of Napoleon and his wife Marie Louise, Duchess of Parma.
[1] In the late 18th century women were generally prevented from attaining an education in art academies in France, particularly if they did not have money and connections.
[7] Auzou attended Jean-Baptiste Regnault's atelier[2] in 1802 along with Sophie Guillemard, Eugénie Delaporte [fr], Caroline Derigny and Henriette Lorimier.
[2] She was a successful artist,[7] first a Neoclassist, who made historic, genre and portrait paintings, including depictions of Napoleon.
[14] Like her sister artists Eugénie Servières, Hortense Haudebourt-Lescot, and Sophie Lemire [fr], she added a feminine touch to paintings in the Troubadour style for patrons such as Caroline, Duchesse de Berry and Empress Josephine.
[18] Her painting Portrait of a musician is in the collection of the Currier Museum of Art, Manchester, New Hampshire, United States.
[2] Like Constance Mayer, Marguerite Gérard, Antoinette Haudebourt-Lescot and Marie-Denise Villers, Auzou was one of the successful women artists following the French Revolution:[22]