“Venus at her Mirror” by Diego Velazquez

“Venus at her Mirror” by Diego Velazquez depicts the goddess Venus in a sensual pose, lying on a bed and looking into a mirror held by Cupid.

Painted by Diego Velázquez, the leading artist of the Spanish Golden Age, between 1647 and 1651, it is the only surviving female nude by Velázquez.

Nudes were extremely rare by seventeenth-century Spanish artists, who were policed by members of the Spanish Inquisition.

Despite the Spanish Catholic church’s restrictions, foreign artists’ nudes were keenly collected by the Spanish court nobles.

This painting is also known as “The Rokeby Venus” and “The Toilet of Venus.” It was inspired by famous Italian works of the nude Venuses, which were the precedents for this work, which was painted during Velázquez’s visit to Italy.

Velázquez combined two traditional compositions of Venus in this painting, the recumbent Venus and the Venus looking at herself in the mirror.

This Velazquez painting also illustrates the “Venus Effect,” which is a phenomenon in the psychology of perception, named after Venus, because of the various pictures of Venus gazing into a mirror.

Viewers of “Venus Effect” may assume that she is admiring her reflection in the mirror. She is actually looking directly at the viewer, through the mirror; she is looking at the reflection of the painter, not herself.

This perception effect is often used in the arts, the cinema, and photography.

This painting has a fascinating history. For its first 150 years, it hung in the houses of Spanish courtiers before being purchased and brought to England to hang in Rokeby Park, a country house, in Yorkshire in 1813. 

Then after the National Gallery, London acquired this painting, it was attacked and severely damaged in 1914 by the suffragette Mary Richardson, in what was her most famous act of defiance.

The picture was restored and returned to display at the National Gallery and is today one of its more famous works.

Diego Velázquez

Diego Velázquez was the leading artist in the court of King Philip IV of Spain, and one of the most important painters of the Spanish Golden Age. 

From the first quarter of the nineteenth century, Velázquez’s artwork was an influence for realist and impressionist painters, in particular, Édouard Manet.

Many modern artists, including Picasso and Dalí, have paid tribute to Velázquez by recreating several of his most famous works.

Venus at her Mirror

• Title:                     Venus at her Mirror
• Alternatives:         The Toilet of Venus, The Rokeby Venus
• Artist:                   Diego Velázquez
• Year:                     1647–51
• Medium:              Oil on canvas
• Dimensions          H: 122.5 cm (48.2 in); W 177 cm (69.6 in)
• Museum:             The National Gallery, London

Diego Velázquez

• Name:                Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez
• Born:                  1599 – Seville, Spain
• Died:                  1660 (aged 61) – Madrid, Spain
• Nationality:        Spanish
• Movement:        Baroque
• Notable works:
  • The Triumph of Bacchus
  • Las Meninas
  • Portrait of Juan de Pareja
  • Venus at her Mirror
  • Christ in the House of Martha and Mary

The Rokeby Venus: Velázquez’s only surviving nude

Explore The National Gallery

16th Century Paintings

• “Mystic Nativity” by Sandro Botticelli – 1550
• “Virgin of the Rocks” by Leonardo da Vinci – 1506
• “The Madonna of the Pinks” by Raphael – 1507
• “The Raising of Lazarus” by Sebastiano del Piombo– 1519
• “Salvator Mundi” by Andrea Previtali – 1519
• “Bacchus and Ariadne” by Titian – 1523
• “The Ambassadors” by Hans Holbein the Younger – 1533
• “Mary Magdalene” by Girolamo Savoldo – 1540
• “Saint George and the Dragon” by Tintoretto – 1558
• “The Family of Darius before Alexander” by Paolo Veronese – 1567
• “Diana and Actaeon” by Titian – 1569
• “The Rape of Europa” by Paolo Veronese – 1570
• “The Death of Actaeon” by Titian – 1575
• “The Origin of the Milky Way” by Tintoretto – 1575

Interesting Art Stories: 20. Rokeby Venus, Diego Velázquez

17th Century Paintings

• “Supper at Emmaus” by Caravaggio – 1601
• “Samson and Delilah” by Peter Paul Rubens – 1610
• “The Judgement of Paris” by Peter Paul Rubens – 1635
• “Aurora abducting Cephalus” by Peter Paul Rubens – 1637
• “Equestrian Portrait of Charles I” by Anthony van Dyck – 1638
• “Venus at her Mirror” by Diego Velázquez – 1651
• “Self Portrait at the Age of 63” by Rembrandt – 1669
• “A Young Woman standing at a Virginal” by Johannes Vermeer – 1670

Gazing at Diego Velázquez’s Rokeby Venus

18th Century Paintings

• “Bacchus and Ariadne” by Sebastiano Ricci – 1713
• “A Regatta on the Grand Canal” by Canaletto – 1740
• “Mr. and Mrs. Andrews” by Thomas Gainsborough – 1749
• “Eton College” by Canaletto – 1754
• “An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump” by Joseph Wright of Derby – 1768
• “Self-portrait in a Straw Hat” by Louise Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun – 1782

Women’s Suffrage and the Rokeby Venus

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“I’ll never get tired of hearing your sweet words, but I will get tired of not.”
– Diego Velazquez

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Photo Credit: Diego Velázquez [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons