The Triumph of Galatea is a fresco completed around 1512 by the Italian painter Raphael for the Villa Farnesina in Rome.

[citation needed] When asked where he had found a model of such beauty, Raphael reportedly said that he had used "a certain idea" he had formed in his mind.

"[4] Antonio Sgamellotti of the Lincei Academy and his colleagues analyzed the chemical composition of the blue pigment in the sea and sky of Triumph of Galatea.

Sgamellotti said the researchers found evidence of Egyptian blue, a pigment thought to have been replaced after the fall of the Roman Empire with the use of lapis lazuli.

Raphael may have chosen to recreate the brilliant pigment for this depiction of the heroine of a Greek myth because of his interest in the ancient world, Sgamellotti explained.