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disappeared from view for 128 years being known reaches up to help the statue-woman step down from
only from engravings until it finally resurfaced at the her plinth. Despite the slightly retardataire nature of
Montargis exhibition in 1967 and now since 2002 the finished composition, the study for the head of
hangs in the Louvre. It represents the artist’s final Galatea exhibited here demonstrates a degree of
attempt at reaffirming his reputation as a history refinement equal to the very best of his work. The
painter. As told by Ovid,6 Pygmalion was a Cypriot delicately painted head is certainly a portrait, the sit-
king who, finding none worthy of his love and ter’s downcast eyes and modest expression capture
‘revolted by the many faults that have been implant- most effectively the moment when the beautiful stat-
ed in the female sex’ determined never to marry, a ue is suffused with life; according to Levitine this
decision he shared with Girodet. He carved an ivory particularly appealed to the King when the artist
statue of his ideal woman with which he promptly presented him with the finished work.7 The thinly
fell in love. In answer to his prayers the image was painted, scumbled background, in providing a con-
brought to life by Aphrodite and Pygmalion subse- trast to the more highly-worked face, gives a sense of
quently married her; in later adaptations of this volume which contributes to the concept of the ani-
story the statue is given a name, Galatea. It is a mation of a statue. The artist made some minor
strange tale of obsession and one can easily under- changes in the finished painting, notably to the hair
stand just why it satisfied Girodet’s own paranoia. of the model.There are several preparatory drawings
Rousseau had given the myth new life by including a for the Salon painting and many recorded in the lit-
hundred lines dedicated to Pygmalion in his poem Le erature which are now untraced. An unpublished
Peintre in the fifth canto. black chalk drawing of a head, clearly related to the
exhibited study, passed through the Paris sale rooms
Girodet represents the moment when the king on December 11th 2009 (Fig.3).8

t

7. G. Levitine, Gazette des Beaux-Arts, vol. LXV, 1965, p. 233.
8. Millon Cornette De St.Cyr, Hotel Drouot, lot 119, black chalk and stumping with white heightening on beige paper 49.4 x 43cm.

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