All About Pygmalion and Galatea by Jean-Leon Gerome

Title of Artwork: “Pygmalion and Galatea”

Artwork by Jean-Leon Gerome

Year Created 1890

Summary of Pygmalion and Galatea

Jean-Léon Gérôme painted Pygmalion and Galatea in 1890. The French title is Pygmalion et Galatée. The motif is based on a scene in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, in which the sculptor Pygmalion embraces his statue of Galatea, made of ivory, after the goddess Venus has given her life.

Pygmalion and Galatea was painted by Jean-Léon Gérôme in the summer of 1890. In 1891, he sculpted the same subject out of marble, which may have been based on a plaster model that was also used for the painting. In order to explore the subject from many perspectives, he painted multiple variations of the same picture.

On March 22, 1892, Boussod, Valadon & Cie purchased the most well-known version, in which Galatea is viewed from behind. After changing hands multiple times, in 1927 Louis C. Raegner gave it to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The other copies are either lost or stored in private collections.

Information Citations:

En.wikipedia.org, https://en.wikipedia.org/.