Pygmalion and Galatea (Gérôme painting)
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Pygmalion and Galatea (Pygmalion et Galatée) is an 1890 painting by the French artist Jean-Léon Gérôme. The motif is taken from Ovid's Metamorphoses, and depicts how the sculptor Pygmalion kisses his ivory statue Galatea, after the goddess Aphrodite has brought her to life.
Creation
Jean-Léon Gérôme painted Pygmalion and Galatea in the summer of 1890. In 1891 he made a marble sculpture of the same subject, possibly based on a plaster version also used as model for the painting. He made several alternative versions of the painting, each presenting the subject from a different angle.
Provenance
The most famous version, where Galatea is seen from behind, was bought by Boussod, Valadon & Cie on 22 March 1892, who sold it on April 7, for 17,250 FFR, to Charles T. Yerkes. After his death it was sold several times until it was donated to the Metropolitan Museum of Art by Louis C. Raegner in 1927. The other versions are in private collections or lost.
See also
- The Cock Fight
- The Duel After the Masquerade
- Phryne before the Areopagus
- Cleopatra and Caesar
- The Slave Market
- The Death of Caesar
- Jerusalem
- The Execution of Marshal Ney
- Pollice Verso
- The Snake Charmer
- Bonaparte Before the Sphinx
- Pygmalion and Galatea
- The Birth of Venus
- Truth Coming Out of Her Well