polity habsburg spainconcept:era early modern
Rokeby Venus
Oil on canvas (c.1647–1651) by Diego Velázquez, depicting a reclining nude Venus viewed from behind, gazing at her reflection in a mirror held by Cupid. The only surviving female nude by Velázquez. Held at the National Gallery, London.
Scholarly Significance
The only surviving female nude by Velázquez and one of very few in 17th-century Spanish painting; famously damaged by a suffragette in 1914.
Notes
- ·The only surviving female nude by Velázquez; the painting was considered scandalous in Counter-Reformation Spain.
- ·The mirror shows a blurred reflection — technically inaccurate (the reflection should show Venus's torso, not her face), possibly intentional to suggest subjective vanity or to face the viewer.
- ·On March 10, 1914, suffragette Mary Richardson slashed the canvas seven times with a meat cleaver. She said she had attacked 'the most beautiful woman in mythological history' in protest at the government's treatment of Emmeline Pankhurst.
- ·Successfully restored; the slashes are largely invisible.
- ·Purchased by the National Gallery in 1906 with a public fundraising campaign led by the National Art Collections Fund.