Pygmalion and Galatea

Auguste Rodin

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

According to classical mythology, the sculptor Pygmalion so desired a marble woman he had carved that Venus, the goddess of love, granted her life. Rodin depicts the statue of Galatea quickening at the sculptor’s touch, her glowing body emerging from unfinished stone. Yet this Pygmalion is not the handsome youth of tradition, but rather a stocky, bearded man resembling Rodin, whose name is prominently inscribed next to the mythical sculptor’s on the side of the base. In his quest to endow his figures with living force, Rodin regarded himself as a modern Pygmalion. Pygmalion and Galatea is one of six Rodin marbles that came to The Met in 1910 through Thomas Fortune Ryan.

European Sculpture and Decorative Arts

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The fifty thousand objects in the Museum's comprehensive and historically important collection of European sculpture and decorative arts reflect the development of a number of art forms in Western European countries from the early fifteenth through the early twentieth century. The holdings include sculpture in many sizes and media, woodwork and furniture, ceramics and glass, metalwork and jewelry, horological and mathematical instruments, and tapestries and textiles. Ceramics made in Asia for export to European markets and sculpture and decorative arts produced in Latin America during this period are also included among these works.

Metropolitan Museum of Art