William Hunter Kendal Young Marlowe to her Kate Hardcastle. He was also Captain Beauclerc in "Diplomacy", William in "William and Susan", W. G. Wills's customized rewriting of Douglas Jerrold's "Black-Eyed Susan", and Aubrey Tanqueray to his wife's Paula in Pinero's "The Second Mrs Tanqueray". He was Pygmalion to his wife's Galatea in W. S. Gilbert's "Pygmalion and Galatea" (1871), and the pair starred in the series of "fairy comedies" by Gilbert in the early 1870s, including "The Palace of Truth" (1870), "Broken Hearts", "The Wicked World" (1873) and "Broken Hearts" (1875), as well as Gilbert's drama "Charity" (1874). Kendal and his wife starred
Pygmalion and the Image series appears in the studio to impart life to Galatea. In physical terms, the painting shows little difference between the two women: the same, unattainable facial expression; the marble colouring; the Amazonian stature. Ironically, their interlaced arms and Aphrodite's penetrating gaze emulate the intertwined women, so despised by Pygmalion, in "The Heart Desires". Aphrodite is identified by the presence of doves and roses – symbols commonly linked with the goddess – and the water at her feet, reminiscent of her birth, fully formed, from the sea. This also represents Galatea's birth, fully formed, as a woman. In a scene that is