Galatea

This is a sketch of Galatea, or what she might look like after she became mortal, posing for her artist husband. She is his muse and only subject.

*In the Greek legend of Pygmalion and Galatea, Pygmalion is sculpting a statue of a beautiful young woman and falls in love with it. On the day of Aphrodite’s festival, he makes an offering and wishes he could have a woman as beautiful as his sculpture. When he returns to his studio, he kisses the statue, and she begins to kiss him back. Aphrodite granted his wish. Her name was Galatea. Pygmalion and Galatea married and had a daughter named Paphos. The most famous painting referring to this myth was painted in 1890 by Jean-Leon Gerome and is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The next year he made a sculpture replicating the famous painting. The sculpture is in the Hearst Castle in San Simeon, California.