Pygmalion, grandson of the king of Cyprus, in love with an ivory statue of a maiden he had made, prayed to Aphrodite to give it life; and, his prayer being granted, married the maiden. There is no classical authority for calling her Galatea. In his Pygmalion and Galatea W. S. Gilbert followed a German play.
Pygmalion
Chambers's Encyclopaedia, Volume 8: Peasant to Eoumelia, p. 502
Source scan(s): p. 0511