In Greek mythology as retold by Ovid, Pygmalion (Ancient Greek: Πυγμαλίων) was a legendary Cypriot sculptor who carved an ivory maiden so perfect he fell in love with his own work. At Aphrodite's festival he prayed for a bride like the statue; the goddess warmed the ivory to life, and he married her. Post-classical tradition names the living statue Galatea. Distinct from the historical or legendary kings of Cyprus and Tyre who share the name.
Adapted from Wikipedia, "Pygmalion (mythology)" · CC BY-SA 4.0
I.Ovid's Metamorphoses
In Metamorphoses Book 10, Pygmalion of Cyprus, disgusted by the shameless Propoetides, renounces living women and turns to sculpture. He fashions a snow-white ivory virgin, dresses and gifts her, and on Aphrodite's feast day asks only for a wife resembling his ivory girl. Returning home he finds the statue soft and warm; the goddess has granted his wish. Their daughter Paphos gives her name to the Cypriot city.
Pseudo-Apollodorus mentions a Pygmalion as king of Cyprus only in passing; Ovid's fuller tale may draw on the lost narrative of Philostephanus paraphrased by Clement of Alexandria, who says the ivory image was of Aphrodite herself.
II.Parallels and the name Galatea
Animated statues and automata — Daedalus' moving figures, Hephaestus' workshop servants, Talos, Hesiod's Pandora — form a wider Greek background for the miracle. The name Galatea for Pygmalion's bride is modern, not Ovidian; Falconet and later artists fixed it in European reception.
III.Reception
The myth has been a staple of painting and sculpture from Bronzino and Gérôme to Burne-Jones and Rodin. On stage and in music it underlies Rousseau's melodrama, Rameau's Pigmalion, Donizetti's Il Pigmalione, and Gilbert's Pygmalion and Galatea. George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion (and My Fair Lady after it) transforms the sculptor into a language teacher who "creates" a lady — a social rather than miraculous animation.