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George
Frederick Watts A label on the back is inscribed: No. 3. The Wife of Pygmalion G. F. Watts, Little Holland House, Kensington. M S Watts relates that Gladstone had expressed a wish to own this picture after seeing it at the Academy in 1868. In a letter to Gladstone, dated 3 May 1868, informing him that it was ‘claimed’, Watts wrote deprecatingly of the painting and invited Gladstone to visit him in order to see the cast of the fragmentary Greek original from which it derived (in the RA exhibition, the work was entitled ‘A Translation from the Greek’). Watts had discovered the head and torso separately among the Arundel Marbles when visiting the Ashmolean some years before with Sir Charles Newton. The cast that he had made from it always stood in his studio. |
Pygmalion Myth - Greek II
Pygmalion was a gifted sculptor from Cyprus who had no interest in the local women as he found them immoral and frivolous. Instead Pygmalion concentrated on his art until one day he ran across a large, flawless piece of ivory and decided to carve a beautiful woman from it. When he had finished the statue, Pygmalion found it so lovely and the image of his ideal woman that he clothed the figure and adorned her in jewels. He gave the statue a name: Galatea, sleeping love. He found himself obsessed with his ideal woman so he went to the temple of Aphrodite to ask forgiveness for all the years he had shunned her and beg for a wife who would be as perfect as his statue.
Aphrodite was curious so she visited the studio of the sculptor while he was away and was charmed by his creation. Galatea was the image of herself. Being flattered, Aphrodite brought the statue to life. When returned Pygmalion to his home, he found Galatea alive, and humbled himself at her feet. Pygmalion and Galatea were wed, and Pygmalion never forgot to thank Aphrodite for the gift she had given him. He and Galatea brought gifts to her temple throughout their life and Aphrodite blessed them with happiness and love in return.
