COUSTOU, French family of sculptors
François Coustou (d. 1690), a wood-carver and brother-in-law of the sculptor Antoine Coyzevox, had two sons who became sculptors, Nicolas Coustou and Guillaume Coustou I, and a daughter, Eléonore, whose son was the sculptor Claude Francin. The brothers moved from their native Lyon to train with Coyzevox in Paris, where they spent the greater part of their careers. They worked on royal projects, notably at the château of Marly, Yvelines, which was the original location of Guillaume Coustou's celebrated Marly Horses now in the Louvre, Paris. Of Guillaume's sons, Charles Pierre Coustou (1721–97) was active as an architect, and Guillaume Coustou II became a sculptor, like his uncle and father spending his early career in Rome and returning to work in France but also contributing to the statuary for Sanssouci, Potsdam.
