In this engraving, the mythical artist Pygmalion sits with a chisel in his hand and his hammer resting near his feet while he offers his sculpture flowers, a token of his affection. As told in Ovid’s narrative poem Metamorphoses, Pygmalion created a sculpture of a woman he considered so beautiful and lifelike that he fell in love with her and named her Galatea. Through the help of Venus, the Roman goddess of love, Galatea is transformed into a woman and the couple marry. The story of Pygmalion and Galatea likely appealed to European artists like Hendrick Goltzius for the rich possibilities it offered for representing antiquity and the idealized human form.