Laurent-Honoré Marqueste (Toulouse 1848 - 1920 Paris)

MacConnal Mason, London;

From whom acquired by Aso O. Tavitian, 13 March 2006.

In Ovid's epic poem The Metamorphoses, Pygmalion, a famous Cypriot sculptor, created a beautiful ivory statue of a woman that he named Galatea. He was so enamored by Galatea that he wished to bring her to life, and after praying to the Goddess Aphrodite, this wish was granted and the two were married.

Laurent-Honoré Marqueste chose to depict Galatea at the moment of transformation, awakening from the confines of the marble, after having received the kiss of life from Pygmalion.

It is believed that Marqueste had originally intended to incorporate the figure of Pygmalion into his composition for Galatea; however he ultimately displayed the marble of Galatea alone, with only the sculptor's tools and a rose at her feet to suggest his presence.

Marqueste studied under François Jouffroy and Alexandre Falguière at the École des Beaux-Arts, Paris and won the Prix de Rome in 1871. He began exhibiting at the Salon in 1874, and won many prizes throughout the last decades of the nineteenth century, including a gold medal at the Exposition Universelle of 1889. In 1884, he was named Officer of the Légion d'Honneur. Marqueste worked on several distinguished commissions in Paris, including a monument to Pierre Waldeck-Rousseau (1846-1904) for the gardens of the Tuileries, and sculptures for the façades of what are now the Sorbonne and the Musée d'Orsay. His works were often rooted in allegorical or mythological subjects, and produced in plaster or marble.