Laurent Honoré Marqueste French, 1848-1920

It is clear from the original terracotta and plaster model that Marqueste intended to incorporate the figure of Pygmalion in the composition. However the following year he displayed the completed marble of Galatea alone, with only the sculptor's tools and a rose at her feet to suggest his presence. She is shown in the moment of transformation, awakening from the confines of the marble, having received the kiss of life from Pygmalion.

When Carl Jacobsen of the Carlsberg brewery saw the statue in 1901, he ordered a second copy, which had to differ in a few details from the original version, now the property of the French state (it was purchased by the Musée du Luxembourg and is now in Châteaubriant). The Galatea was also produced in biscuit de Sèvres and a marble statuette was exhibited at the French exhibition of 1888 in Copenhagen, organised by Jacobsen.

Marqueste won a First Class medal for his ecstatically acclaimed  Perseus Slaying Medusa exhibited in the 1876 Salon, and now in Villeurbanne. Jacobsen also obtained permission for a copy of this in 1902. Like the Galatea, it is now in the Carlsberg Glyptotek.

RELATED LITERATURE
Fonsmark no.96, pp.216-17; Musée d'Orsay p.276