Pygmalion (mythology) Pygmalion (mythology) Pygmalion (; Ancient Greek: Πυγμαλίων "Pugmalíōn", "gen".: Πυγμαλίωνος) is a legendary figure of Cyprus. Though "Pygmalion" is the Greek version of the Phoenician royal name "Pumayyaton", he is most familiar from Ovid's narrative poem "Metamorphoses", in which Pygmalion was a sculptor who fell in love with a statue he had carved. In Ovid's narrative, Pygmalion was a Cypriot sculptor who carved a woman out of ivory. According to Ovid, after seeing the Propoetides he was "not interested in women", but his statue was so beautiful and realistic that he fell in love with it. In time, Aphrodite's festival
Pygmalion and Galatea (Gérôme painting) Pygmalion and Galatea (Gérôme painting) Pygmalion and Galatea () 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. 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. The most famous