“Venus at her Mirror” by Diego Velázquez

“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