Rokeby Venus
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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| La Venus del espejo |
| Diego Velázquez, 1644–1648 |
| Oil on canvas |
| 122 × 177 cm |
| National Gallery, London |
La Venus del Espejo, also known as The Rokeby Venus, is a painting by Diego Velázquez in the National Gallery, London. It dates from 1644 to 1648.
In the painting the goddess Venus is depicted lying on a bed, looking into a mirror held up by Cupid. The face reflected in the dimmed mirror appears to be that of an older woman, which has long intrigued experts. Some think it is a commentary on the vanity of beauty which is transitory due to aging. Some think the face in the mirror was over-painted by another artist at a later time. Another explanation is that the face is not aged, merely out of focus, a sharper face would distract our immediate attention from the form of Venus. By seeing the nude first, and the face afterwards, we are "caught" in voyeurism. The face in the mirror is also substantially larger than it should be, and the mirror is angled such that, in reality, it would reflect a different part of the goddess's body.
The painting is unique for being the only surviving female nude by Velázquez, and one of only two such paintings in all of 17th-century Spanish art, which was often censored by the Spanish Inquisition. It was revolutionary for its depiction of the nude female form with its back facing the viewer. The composition has only three main colours: red, white and grey, which include the pigment of Venus's skin.
La Venus del Espejo is first recorded in an inventory in 1651, belonging to Gaspar Méndez de Haro (1629-1687). It was intended as a pendant piece to a 16th-century Venetian painting of a recumbent nymph in a landscape, reversing the pose and moving the setting indoors. In 1800 the painting passed into the hands of Manuel de Godoy, the chief minister of Charles IV of Spain. He hung it alongside two masterpieces by Goya he appears to have commissioned himself, The Nude Maja and The Clothed Maja. These bear obvious compositional similarities with Velázquez's Venus.
In 1813 the painting came to England and was bought by John Morritt, MP, who hung it in his house at Rokeby Park, Yorkshire, which gave it its popular name. In 1906 it was acquired for the National Gallery by the newly-created National Art Collections Fund, its first campaigning triumph. King Edward VII is thought to have given £8,000 towards the cost of the painting, which he greatly admired, and became patron of the Fund thereafter.
On March 10, 1914 the militant suffragette Mary "Slasher" Richardson walked into the National Gallery and attacked the canvas with a meat cleaver, provoked by the arrest of Emmeline Pankhurst the previous day. In a statement that she gave to the Women's Social and Political Union shortly afterwards Richardson explained her actions thus: 'I have tried to destroy the picture of the most beautiful woman in mythological history as a protest against the Government for destroying Mrs Pankhurst, who is the most beautiful character in modern history', adding in a 1952 interview that she 'didn't like the way men visitors gaped at it all day long'.
The painting was featured in the 2006 film Venus.
