Wikipedia:Today's featured article/November 20, 2008

The Rokeby Venus is a painting by Diego Velázquez, the leading artist of the Spanish Golden Age, in the National Gallery, London. Completed between 1647 and 1651, and probably painted during the artist's visit to Italy, the work depicts the goddess Venus in an erotic pose, lying on a bed and looking into a mirror held by the god of sensual love, her son Cupid. Numerous works, from the ancient to the baroque, have been cited as sources of inspiration for Velázquez. The nude Venuses of the Italian painters, such as Giorgione's Sleeping Venus (c. 1510) 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 her reflection in a mirror. In a number of 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 picture's viewer. The Rokeby Venus is the only surviving female nude by Velázquez. The painting adorned the houses of Spanish courtiers until 1813 when it was brought to England to hang in Rokeby Park, Yorkshire. In 1906, the painting was purchased by National Art Collections Fund for the National Gallery, London. Although it was attacked and badly damaged in 1914 by the suffragette Mary Richardson, it was soon fully restored and returned to display. (more...)

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