The Rokeby Venus ( ; also known as The Toilet of Venus, Venus at her Mirror, Venus and Cupid and, in Spanish, La Venus del espejo) is a painting by Diego Velázquez, the leading artist of the Spanish Golden Age. Completed between 1647 and 1651,"The Rokeby Venus". National Gallery, London. Retrieved on 25 December 2007. and probably painted during the artist's visit to Italy, the work depicts the goddess Venus in a sensual pose, lying on a bed with her back facing the viewer, and looking into a mirror held by the Roman god of physical love, her son Cupid. The painting is in the National Gallery, London.
Numerous works, from the ancient to the baroque, have been cited as inspiring Velázquez. The nude Venuses of the Italian painters, such as Giorgione's Sleeping Venus () and Titian's Venus of Urbino (1538), were the main precedents. In this work, Velázquez combined two established poses for Venus: recumbent on a couch or a bed, and gazing at a mirror. She is often described as looking at herself in the mirror, although this is physically impossible since viewers can see her face reflected in their direction. This phenomenon is known as the Venus effect.This discrepancy has been termed the "Venus effect" by researchers of the University of Liverpool, who argue that "since the viewer sees her face in the mirror, Venus is actually looking at the reflection of the viewer". Although her face is turned as if looking at the viewer's reflection, weak but noticeable corneal reflections painted on her eyes indicate a gaze directed away from the viewer. It is as if Venus were gazing in the direction of what would have been her own reflection in the mirror were the discrepancy not to exist (her corneal reflections can be seen with the magnification tool on the right of the painting's image here). With her eyes to the right, the scene's illumination, which comes exclusively from the top left, could not produce such reflections on her corneas; it seems parsimonious that Velázquez—a master painter most unlikely to have erred on where to place reflections—created on purpose a scene that could not exist. Given this conflicting duality, it is noteworthy the main webpage of the National Gallery about the Rokeby Venus describes her as looking "both at herself and at the viewer" (even though she is described as "returning our gaze" in another Gallery webpage, Focus painting for February 2010 , retrieved on 27 September 2010). In some ways the painting represents a pictorial departure, through its central use of a mirror, and because it shows the body of Venus turned away from the observer of the painting.Carr, p. 214.
The Rokeby Venus is the only surviving female nude by Velázquez. Nudes were extremely rare in seventeenth-century Spanish art,MacLaren, p. 126. and Carr, p. 214. which was policed actively by members of the Spanish Inquisition. Despite this, nudes by foreign artists were keenly collected by the court circle, and this painting was hung in the houses of Spanish courtiers until 1813, when it was brought to England to hang in Rokeby Park, Yorkshire. In 1906, National Art Collections Fund purchased the painting for the National Gallery, London. Although it was attacked and badly damaged in 1914 by Canadian suffragette Mary Richardson, it was soon fully restored and returned to display. Just Stop Oil attacked it again and smashed its protective glass in 2023.
Painting Description
The Rokeby Venus depicts the Roman goddess of love, beauty and fertility reclining languidly on her bed, her back to the viewer—in Antiquity, portrayal of Venus from a back view was a common visual and literary erotic motif—and her knees tucked. She is shown without the mythological paraphernalia normally included in depictions of the scene; jewellery, roses, and myrtle are all absent. Unlike most earlier portrayals of the goddess, which show her with blonde hair, Velázquez's Venus is a brunette.
Venus gazes into a mirror held by Cupid, who is without his usual bow and arrows. When the work was first inventoried, it was described as "a nude woman", probably owing to its controversial nature. Venus looks outward at the viewer of the paintingCarr, p. 214. It does not, however, seem clear to Wallace, quoted below. through her reflected image in the mirror. However, the image is blurred and reveals only a vague reflection of her facial features; the reflected head is much larger than it would be in reality.Gregory, R. L., Mirrors in mind (London: Penguin, 1997, ). He notes that "the image is with legitimate artistic licence at least twice the size it should be" (p. 21). The enlarged size was presumably a correction for the small image produced by a mirror behind the subject. The critic Natasha Wallace has suggested that Venus's indistinct face may be the key to the underlying meaning of the painting, in that "it is not intended as a specific female nude, nor even as a portrayal of Venus, but as an image of self-absorbed beauty."Wallace, Natasha. "Venus at her Mirror". JSS Virtual Gallery, 17 November 2000. Retrieved on 4 January 2008. According to Wallace, "There is nothing spiritual about face or picture. The classical setting is an excuse for a very material aesthetic sexuality—not sex, as such, but an appreciation of the beauty that accompanies attraction".
Intertwined pink silk ribbons drape over the mirror and curl over its frame. Art historians have debated the ribbon's function; suggestions include an allusion to the fetters Cupid used to bind lovers, that it was used to hang the mirror, and that it was used to blindfold Venus moments before. The critic Julián Gallego found Cupid's facial expression to be so melancholy that he interprets the ribbons as fetters binding the god to the image of Beauty, and gave the painting the title "Amor conquered by Beauty".Gallego, Julián. "Vision et symboles dans la peinture espagnole du siecle d'or". Paris: Klincksieck, 1968. p. 59f.
The folds of the bed sheets echo the goddess's physical form, and are rendered to emphasise the sweeping curves of her body. The composition mainly uses shades of red, white, and grey, which are used even in Venus's skin; although the effect of this simple colour scheme has been much praised, recent technical analysis has shown that the grey sheet was originally a "deep mauve", which has now faded. The luminescent colours used in Venus's skin, applied with "smooth, creamy, blended handling",Keith, Larry; in Carr, p. 83. contrast with the deeper tones and livelier handling of the fabrics.
The Rokeby Venus is the only surviving nude by Velázquez, but three others are recorded in 17th-century Spanish inventories. Two were mentioned in the royal collection, but may have been lost in the 1734 fire that destroyed the main Royal Palace of Madrid. A further one was recorded in the collection of Domingo Guerra Coronel.MacLaren, p. 125. These records mention "a reclining Venus", Venus and Adonis, and a Psyche and Cupid.Portús, p. 56.
The work is widely thought to have been painted from life, but the model's identity remains speculative. In contemporary Spain it was acceptable for artists to employ male nude models for studies, but the use of female nude models was frowned upon.Prater, pp. 56–57. The painting is believed to have been executed during one of Velázquez's visits to Rome, and Prater has observed that in Rome the artist "did indeed lead a life of considerable personal liberty that would have been consistent with the notion of using a live nude female model". It has been claimed that the painting depicts a mistress Velázquez is known to have had while in Italy, who is supposed to have borne his child. Others have claimed that the model is the same as in Coronation of the Virgin and Las Hilanderas, both in the Museo del Prado, and other works.
The figures of both Venus and Cupid were significantly altered during the painting process, the result of the artist's corrections to the contours as initially painted.López-Rey believed that an overzealous cleaning in 1965 unevenly exposed some of Velázquez's "tentative contours", resulting in a loss of subtlety and contravening the artist's intent. López-Rey, vol II, p. 260. However, the National Gallery catalogue retaliates by describing López-Rey's description of the painting's condition as "largely misleading". MacLaren, p. 127. Pentimenti can be seen in Venus's upraised arm, in the position of her left shoulder, and on her head. Infra-red reveals that she was originally shown more upright with her head turned to the left. An area on the left of the painting, extending from Venus's left foot to the left leg and foot of Cupid, is apparently unfinished, but this feature is seen in many other works by Velázquez and was probably deliberate.Carr, p. 217, see also MacLaren, p. 125 for the opposite view. The painting was given a major cleaning and restoration in 1965–66, which showed it to be in good condition, and with very little paint added later by other artists, contrary to what some earlier writers had asserted.MacLaren, p. 125. In particular, it had been claimed that the face in the mirror had been overpainted. See note above for López-Rey's criticism of the cleaning.
Sources
Paintings of nudes and of Venus by Italian, and especially Venetian, artists were influences on Velázquez. His version is, according to the art historian Andreas Prater, "a highly independent visual concept that has many precursors, but no direct model; scholars have sought them in vain". Forerunners include Titian's various depictions of Venus, such as Venus and Cupid with a Partridge, Venus and Cupid with an Organist and notably the Venus of Urbino; Palma il Vecchio's Reclining Nude; and Giorgione's Sleeping Venus,The landscape probably done or finished by Titian, after Giorgione's death all of which show the deity reclining on luxurious textiles, although in landscape settings in the latter two works. The use of a centrally placed mirror was inspired by the painters of the Italian High Renaissance, including Titian, Girolamo Savoldo and Lorenzo Lotto, who used mirrors as an active protagonist, as opposed to more than merely a prop or accessory in the pictorial space. Both Titian and Peter Paul Rubens had already painted Venus looking into a mirror, and as both had had close ties to the Spanish court, their examples would have been familiar to Velázquez. However, "this girl with her small waist and jutting hip, does not resemble the fuller more rounded Italian nudes inspired by ancient sculpture".Langmuir, p. 253 However, the combination of elements in Velázquez's composition—a Venus both reclining and looking at herself in a mirror—was original.
One innovation of the Rokeby Venus, when compared to other large single nude paintings, lies in the fact that Velázquez depicts a back view of its subject who is turned away from the viewer. There were precedents for this in prints by Giulio Campagnola,Campagnola, Giulio: Liegende Frau in einer Landschaft. Zeno.org. Retrieved on 14 March 2008. Agostino Veneziano, Hans Sebald Beham and Theodor de Bry,Portús, p. 67, note: 42; citing Sánchez Cantón. as well as classical sculptures known to Velázquez, of which casts were made for Madrid. These were the Sleeping Ariadne now in the Pitti Palace, but then in Rome, of which Velázquez ordered a cast for the Royal collection in 1650–51, and the Borghese Hermaphroditus, a sleeping hermaphrodite (picture to the right above), now in the Louvre, of which a cast was sent to Madrid,MacLaren, p. 126 and which also emphasises the curve from hip to waist.