The World of Pygmalion (Map of London)

Map of London with all the important places marked.

Pygmalion the Myth with Artwork

The Artwork Inspired by the Myth

*We apologize for the font inconsistency due to the format of the website.

Honore Daumier

Pygmalion from the "Ancient History" Series

1842. Lithograpghy.

Bibliotheque Nationale de France, Paris, France

Jean-Leon Gerome

Pygmalion and Galatea 1824

Oil on Canvas, 35 x 27 in.

The Bridgemen Art Library London

The Soul Attains Pygmalion and the Image IV

Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, Bt ARA (1833-1898) 1875-78

Oil on canvas 39 x 30 inches Original frame

Birmingham Museums and Gallery

A Sèvres biscuit group of Pygmalion and Galatea on oval stand

Modelled by Etienne-Maurice Falconet

Height: 36.100 cm

Bequeathed by Sir Bernard Eckstein, Bt.

M&ME 1948,12-3,38

Room 46: Europe 1400-1800

A. Dawson, A catalogue of French porcelai, revised paperback edition

(London, The British Museum Press, 2000)

George Frederick Watts

1817–1904

Wife of Pygmalion 1868

Oil on canvas 26.25 x 21 ins

Buscot Park, Oxfordshire, England

Jean-Leon Gerome

(French, 1824-1904)

Pygmalion and Galeta

Oil on Canvas, 35 x 27 in.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art New York

Ovid's Metamorphoses

Book X: 243-297 (~1850)

This is a later English translation of the Pygmalion source text.

Orpheus sings: Pygmalion and the statue

Pygmalion had seen them, spending their lives in wickedness, and, offended by the failings that nature gave the female heart, he lived as a bachelor, without a wife or partner for his bed. But, with wonderful skill, he carved a figure, brilliantly, out of snow-white ivory, no mortal woman, and fell in love with his own creation. The features are those of a real girl, who, you might think, lived, and wished to move, if modesty did not forbid it. Indeed, art hides his art. He marvels: and passion, for this bodily image, consumes his heart. Often, he runs his hands over the work, tempted as to whether it is flesh or ivory, not admitting it to be ivory. he kisses it and thinks his kisses are returned; and speaks to it; and holds it, and imagines that his fingers press into the limbs, and is afraid lest bruises appear from the pressure. Now he addresses it with compliments, now brings it gifts that please girls, shells and polished pebbles, little birds, and many-coloured flowers, lilies and tinted beads, and the Heliades’s amber tears, that drip from the trees. He dresses the body, also, in clothing; places rings on the fingers; places a long necklace round its neck; pearls hang from the ears, and cinctures round the breasts. All are fitting: but it appears no less lovely, naked. He arranges the statue on a bed on which cloths dyed with Tyrian murex are spread, and calls it his bedfellow, and rests its neck against soft down, as if it could feel.

The day of Venus’s festival came, celebrated throughout Cyprus, and heifers, their curved horns gilded, fell, to the blow on their snowy neck. The incense was smoking, when Pygmalion, having made his offering, stood by the altar, and said, shyly: “If you can grant all things, you gods, I wish as a bride to have...” and not daring to say “the girl of ivory” he said “one like my ivory girl.” Golden Venus, for she herself was present at the festival, knew what the prayer meant, and as a sign of the gods’ fondness for him, the flame flared three times, and shook its crown in the air. When he returned, he sought out the image of his girl, and leaning over the couch, kissed her. She felt warm: he pressed his lips to her again, and also touched her breast with his hand. The ivory yielded to his touch, and lost its hardness, altering under his fingers, as the bees’ wax of Hymettus softens in the sun, and is moulded, under the thumb, into many forms, made usable by use. The lover is stupefied, and joyful, but uncertain, and afraid he is wrong, reaffirms the fulfilment of his wishes, with his hand, again, and again.

It was flesh! The pulse throbbed under his thumb. Then the hero, of Paphos, was indeed overfull of words with which to thank Venus, and still pressed his mouth against a mouth that was not merely a likeness. The girl felt the kisses he gave, blushed, and, raising her bashful eyes to the light, saw both her lover and the sky. The goddess attended the marriage that she had brought about, and when the moon’s horns had nine times met at the full, the woman bore a son, Paphos, from whom the island takes its name.

What did Edwardian era Londoners eat?

Fin de Souper "After Dinner", also called "The Dinner Party" 1911, Jules Alexandre Grün Oil on Canvas

Dinner parties were very showy and expensive.

There were not quite as many dishes as there had been in the nineteenth century. There were usually no more than eight to ten courses, but they were far more elaborate. Dinner parties were so important to the reputation of wealthy Edwardian families that the chef could earn far more than the butler.

Expensive chefs would expect the other servants to be at their beck and call and they had a reputation for being temperamental. The servants themselves ate much plainer food. Their main meal of the day was at midday, rather than in the evening like the family.

(Cook It! History Cookbook)

Where's Alfred Doolittle's new money coming from?

Ezra D. Wannafeller leaves money to Doolittle from his investment in predigested cheese.

The cheese trust actually means predigested cheese! It was a very common food in Europe. You add enzymes to the food to partially "predigest" it before it gets to the human body to enhance the flavor and the value of it.

predigested - artificially partially digested as by enzymatic action

"The principle of predigesting foods with natural substances to enhance its nutritional value (conserving the life enzyme bank account in our jargon) is not the sole cultural heritage of people of the Far East. Yogurt was the prime predigested food of ancient India. Cheeses were the pre-digested foods of early Europeans. They prepared their cheese to enhance its nutritional value and for specific taste goals by treating it with specific bacterial enzymes."

http://chestofbooks.com/health/nutrition/Dietetics-Rules/Chapter-VIII-Predigestion-Of-Foods.html

Where does Henry Higgins live?

Various views of Wimpole Street, London.

Henry Higgin's Home at 27A Wimpole Street.

What would they listen to?

The music of Pygmalion:

The link features a collection of Music Hall songs that would have been popular during this era in England.

Welcome

Welcome everyone. This is going to be a place for easy access to all of the dramaturgical research, so we can all better understand the world of George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion.

PHOTOGRAPHER / CREDIT: Davart Company, NYC

DATE: 1934

Synopsis: It tells the story of Henry Higgins, a professor of phonetics who makes a bet with his friend Colonel Pickering that he can successfully pass off a Cockney flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, as a refined society lady by teaching her how to speak with an upper class accent and training her in etiquette. In the process, Higgins and Eliza grow close, but she ultimately rejects his domineering ways and declares she will marry Freddy Eynsford-Hill – a young, poor, gentleman (Wikipedia).