Pygmalion and Galatea

c. 1890

Oil on canvas, 88.9 × 68.6 cm · Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

One of three oil versions Gérôme painted of his own painted marble sculpture of the subject, each showing the statue from a different angle. Here a sculptor paints his sculpture coming alive.

It shows the moment in Ovid when Venus brings the statue to life.
Each of the three paintings views the statue from a different side, as if walking around it.
Gérôme’s marble version is at Hearst Castle, California.
Given to the Met in 1927.

In Ovid, the sculptor Pygmalion fell in love with the ivory statue he had carved, and Venus brought it to life. The name Galatea was given to her by later writers.

Image: Wikimedia Commons · CC0