Pygmalion was not actually sculpting the Nereid; in fact there doesn't seem to be any direct connection between the Nereid Galatea and Pygmalion's statue. According to Wikipedia, "the name 'Galatea' was first given wide circulation [in connection with Pygmalion and his statue] in Jean–Jacques Rousseau's scène lyrique of 1762, Pygmalion. The name had become a commonplace of pastoral fictions, because of the well known myth of Acis and Galatea". Wikipedia also notes that "[a]s late as 1763, a sculpture of the subject shown by Falconet at the Paris Salon carried the title Pygmalion aux pieds de sa statue qui s'anime (Pygmalion at the feet of his statue that comes to life). That sculpture, currently at the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, now bears the expected modern title Pygmalion and Galatea."
© Haydn Thompson 2020