Diego Velázquez, 'The Toilet of Venus ('The Rokeby Venus')', 1647-51

The Toilet of Venus ('The Rokeby Venus')

Diego Velázquez

Room 30

About the work

Overview

Venus, the goddess of love, reclines languidly on her bed, the curve of her body echoed in the sweep of sumptuous satin fabric. The pearly tones of her smooth skin contrast with the rich colours and lively brushstrokes of the curtain and sheets.

Venus‘ face is reflected in the mirror held up by her son, Cupid, but her reflection is blurred – we can’t see who she really is. Perhaps Velázquez wanted to make sure that Venus – the personification of female beauty – was not an identifiable person; we have to ‘complete’ her features with our imagination. Cupid’s face and far leg are very loosely painted and appear almost unfinished: Velázquez deliberately used a sketchy style in order to focus our attention on Venus.

This is Velázquez’s only surviving female nude and one of his most celebrated works. Its nickname, ‘The Rokeby Venus’, originates from Rokeby Park, a country house in County Durham, where the painting hung for much of the nineteenth century.

In-depth

This is the only surviving female nude painted by Velázquez. The subject was rare in seventeenth-century Spain, where overtly sensual images were met with disapproval by the Catholic Church. In spite of this the king, and wealthy Spanish art collectors in his circle, did own mythological paintings depicting nudes by artists such as Rubens and Titian.

Venus, the goddess of love, reclines languidly on her bed, the curve of her body echoed in the sweep of sumptuous satin fabric beneath her, which was originally more purple than grey in tone. Cupid, her son, holds a mirror up to her, its intertwining pink ribbons – used to hang it on a wall – knotted at the top. The way these ribbons cross Cupid’s wrist may allude to a blindfold, one of his attributes, or to the shackles he used to bind the hearts of lovers.

Venus‘ reflection is blurred: we can’t see who she really is. Perhaps Velázquez wanted to make sure that the goddess – the personification of female beauty – was not an identifiable person; we have to ‘complete’ her features with our imagination. Velázquez originally painted Venus‘ head slightly more in profile so that her nose was visible, but he later changed his mind; perhaps he thought that this would give too much away. That we view this woman from behind and cannot see her face clearly in the mirror is part of what makes the image so intriguing.

The glowing, pearly tones Velázquez has used for Venus’ smooth skin contrast with the rich colours and lively brushstrokes of the curtain and sheets. Cupid’s face and far leg are very loosely painted and appear almost unfinished: Velázquez deliberately used a sketchy style in order to focus our attention on Venus.

Paintings of the naked Venus had been made popular by sixteenth-century Venetian painters, especially Giorgione and Titian. Here Velázquez has merged two traditional representations of the goddess – one of Venus ‘at her toilet’, where she is normally shown sitting upright on a bed, looking at herself in a mirror, and another of her reclining, usually in a landscape. The result here is an image of astonishing originality.

We are not sure when and where the painting was made. It has been variously dated to before, during and after Velázquez’s second trip to Italy (1649–51). It does seem to be the painting listed in a household inventory of 1651 of the Spanish painter and art dealer Domingo Guerra Coronel, where it is not said to be by Velázquez and is described simply as ‘a nude woman’ (‘una muger desnuda’). Soon afterwards the painting was purchased by renowned art collector Gaspar de Haro, 7th Marqués del Carpio y de Heliche, in whose collection it was paired with a sixteenth-century Venetian picture of a naked nymph in a landscape, seen from the front. It hung in a large room alongside other mythological paintings and copies of works in the Spanish royal collection, to which Gaspar had privileged access thanks to his close relationship with Philip IV.

In 1687 the painting was inherited by Gaspar’s daughter, Catalina Méndez de Haro, who married Francisco Álvarez de Toledo, 10th Duke of Alba, shortly thereafter. It remained in his family’s prestigious collection until the early nineteenth century when Charles IV of Spain ordered the Duchess of Alba to sell the painting – and other works – to Don Manuel Godoy, his favourite minister. Godoy hung ‘The Rokeby Venus’ alongside Correggio’s Venus and Mercury with Cupid and Goya’s The Nude Maja and The Clothed Maja (both Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid) in a very private room (described by a contemporary as a ‘gavinete interior’) – it must have been one of the most remarkable cabinets of female nudes in all of Spain.

This painting takes its nickname, ‘The Rokeby Venus’, from Rokeby Park, a country house in County Durham, where it hung for much of the nineteenth century. Since its arrival and public display at the National Gallery in 1906, the painting has become one of Velázquez’s most celebrated works. It continues to inspire both artists and writers, and has been the subject of novels, films, documentaries, artworks and installations.

Key facts

Details

Full title: The Toilet of Venus ('The Rokeby Venus')
Artist: Diego Velázquez
Artist dates: 1599 - 1660
Date made: 1647-51
Medium and support: oil on canvas
Dimensions: 122.5 × 177 cm
Acquisition credit: Presented by the Art Fund, 1906
Inventory number: NG2057
Location: Room 30
Collection: Main Collection
Frame: 17th-century Italian Frame

Provenance

It first appears in the inventory of the possessions of Don Gaspar Méndez de Haro, Marqués del Carpio and de Heliche, in Madrid, June 1651; it was apparently listed among the possessions of the Marquesa del Carpio in 1669. It is not certain whether the painting was in the collection of pictures belonging to Don Gaspar sent from Rome to Naples in 1682 and still in Naples in 1688. Don Gaspar died in 1687 and the picture passed to his daughter, Doña Catalina Méndez de Haro y Guzmán, who married the 10th Duke of Alba in 1688; it remained in the Alba collection until after the death in 1802 of Doña María Teresa Cayetana de Silva, Duchess of Alba, when her heirs sold it by order of Charles IV to the Queen’s favourite, Don Manuel Godoy, Principe de la Paz. It was bought between October, 1808 and September, 1813, by G. A. Wallis for W. Buchanan, and brought by him to England in September, 1813; in January, 1814, it was apparently in the possession of George Yeates and was sold shortly afterwards to John Bacon Sawrey Morritt. In the Morritt collection, Rokeby, Yorkshire; Art Treasures Exhibition, Manchester, 1857 (provisional catalogue, no. 1079; definitive catalogue, no. 787); exhibited Royal Academy, 1890 (no. 135). Sold by H. E. Morritt in 1905; exhibited at Messrs. Agnew’s in 1905 (no. 9) and purchased from them by the National Art-Collections Fund, by whom presented to the Gallery in 1906. National Art-Collections Fund Exhibition, National Gallery, 1945/6 (no. 6); Arts Council Spanish Paintings Exhibition, 1947 (no. 30). Exhibited, Madrid, Velázquez y lo velazqueño, 1961 (no. 76).

Additional information

Text extracted from the ‘Provenance’ section of the catalogue entry in Neil MacLaren, revised by Allan Braham, ‘National Gallery Catalogues: The Spanish School’, London 1988; for further information, see the full catalogue entry.

Exhibition history

2014

Velázquez Exhibition

Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien

27 October 2014 - 15 February 2015

Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais

25 March 2015 - 13 July 2015
2024

National Treasures

Walker Art Gallery

10 May 2024 - 26 August 2024

Bibliography

1898

A. de Beruete y Moret, Velázquez, Paris 1898
1905

Thomas Agnew & Sons, Eleventh Annual Exhibition on Behalf of the Artists' General Institution, London 1905
1906

A. Beruete, 'La Venus del Espejo: Cuadro de Velázquez', Revista de cultura española, 1906
1906

'Editorial: The Lessons of the Rokeby Velázquez', The Burlington Magazine, VIII/34, 1906, pp. 224-8
1906

'National Art Collections Fund: Second Annual Report, 1905', National Art Collections Fund Annual Report, 1906
1907

London, National Gallery Archive, NG17/6: Annual Report of the Trustees of the National Gallery for the Year 1906, 1907
1911

Á.M. de Barcia, Catálogo de la coleccíon de pinturas del Duque de Berwick y de Alba, Madrid 1911
1927

A.P. Laurie, 'The Forger and the Detective', The Burlington Magazine, LI/292, 1927, pp. 50-1
1943

N. MacLaren, Velázquez: The Rokeby Venus, London 1943
1946

L.-P. Fargue, Velázquez, Paris 1946
1952

Maclaren, Neil, National Gallery Catalogues: The Spanish School, London 1952
1952

J.M. Pita Andrade, 'Los cuadros de Velázquez y Mazo que poseyó el Séptimo Marqués del Carpio', Archivo español de arte, XXV, 1952, pp. 223-36
1952

J.F.-J. Stuart, 'Acerca de la Venus del Espejo', Academia, I/3, 1952, pp. 348-51
1953

M.R. Richardson, 'The Rokeby Venus', in M.R. Richardson, Laugh a Defiance, London 1953, pp. 165-73
1960

S. Cantón, 'La Venus del Espejo', Archivo español de arte, XXXIII/130-131, 1960, pp. 137-48
1960

F.J. Sanchez Cantón, 'La Venus del Espejo', Archivo español de arte, XXXIII/130-131, 1960, pp. 137-48
1967

G. Agnew, Agnew's, 1817-1967, London 1967
1970

E. Johnson, Sir Walter Scott: The Great Unknown, vol. 1, 1771 - 1821, London 1970
1970

N. MacLaren and A. Braham, The Spanish School, 2nd edn, London 1970
1976

N. von Holst, Creators, Collectors and Connoisseurs: The Anatomy of Artistic Taste from Antiquity to the Present Day, London 1976
1976

A. Braham, Velázquez: The Rokeby Venus (exh. cat. The National Gallery, 13 May - 27 June 1976), London 1976
1979

E. Pardo Canalís, 'Una visita a la Galería del Príncipe de la Paz', Goya, 148-150, 1979, pp. 300-11
1979

S. Howard, 'The Dresden Venus and Its Kin: Mutation and Retrieval of Types', Art Quarterly, II, 1979, pp. 90-111
1981

N. Glendinning, 'Goya's Patrons', Apollo, CXIV/236, 1981, pp. 236-47
1983

M. Helston, Spanish and Later Italian Paintings, London 1983
1983

J. Montagu, 'Velázquez Marginalia: His Slave Juan de Pareja and His Illegitimate Son Antonio', The Burlington Magazine, CXXV/968, 1983, pp. 683-5
1984

J. Gállego, El cuadro dentro del cuadro, Madrid 1984
1985

R.L. Torrijos, La mitología en la pintura española del Siglo de Oro, Madrid 1985
1985

E. Snow, 'Velásquez's Rokeby Venus: The Body as Horizon', Artspace, IX/2, 1985, pp. 12-6
1986

D. Bull and E. Harris, 'The Companion of Velázquez's "Rokeby Venus" and a Source for Goya's "Naked Maja"', The Burlington Magazine, CXXVIII/1002, 1986, pp. 643-54
1988

Maclaren, Neil, revised by Allan Braham, National Gallery Catalogues: The Spanish School, 2nd edn (revised), London 1988
1989

D. Freedberg, Iconoclasts and Their Motives, Maarn 1989
1989

J.F. Moffitt, 'The "Euhemeristic" Mythologies of Velázquez', Artibus et historiae, X/19, 1989, pp. 157-75
1989

E. Snow, 'Theorizing the Male Gaze: Some Problems', Representations, 25, 1989, pp. 30-41
1990

E. Harris and D. Bull, Goya's 'Majas' at the National Gallery, (exh. cat. The National Gallery, 2 May - 1 July 1990), London 1990
1991

C. Brown, The Drawings of Anthony van Dyck, New York 1991
1992

J. Gállego, Reflexiones sobre Velázquez, Madrid 1992
1992

L. Nead, The Female Nude. Art, Obscenity and Sexuality, London 1992
1992

R.L. Torrijos, 'Coleccionismo en la época de Velázquez: El Marqués de Heliche', in E. Arias Anglés (ed.), Velázquez y el arte de su tiempo, V Jornadas de Arte, Madrid 1992, pp. 27-36
1994

D. Bull and E. Harris, 'The Companion of the "Rokeby Venus"', The Burlington Magazine, CXXXVI/1097, 1994, p. 555
1994

Á. Campo y Francés, 'La Venus de Velázquez y su engañoso espejo', Academia, 78, 1994, pp. 53-66
1995

J. Brown, Kings and Connoisseurs: Collecting Art in Seventeenth-Century Europe, New Haven 1995
1996

J. López-Rey, Velázquez: Catalogue Raisonné, Cologne 1996
1996

G. Finaldi, 'The Rokeby Venus', in E. Conran et al., Flesh and Spirit: Velázquez and Painters in Seventeenth-Century Madrid, Durham 1996
1997

P. Cherry and M.B. Burke, Collections of Paintings in Madrid, 1601-1755, vol. 1, ed. M.L. Gilbert, Los Angeles 1997
1997

D. Gamboni, The Destruction of Art: Iconoclasm and Vandalism Since the French Revolution, London 1997
1997

J. Tomlinson, From El Greco to Goya: Painting in Spain, 1561-1828, New York 1997
1998

J. Portús Pérez, La sala reservada del Museo del Prado: Y el coleccionismo de pintura de desnudo en la corte española, 1554-1838, Madrid 1998
1998

B.N. Prieto, La pintura andaluza del siglo XVII y sus fuentes grabadas, Madrid 1998
1999

J. Baticle et al., Velázquez, Dossier de l'art 63, Dijon 1999
1999

C.B. Lacasa (ed.), 25 documentos de Velázquez en el Archivo Histórico de Protocolos de Madrid, Madrid 1999
1999

H.B. Werness, The Symbolism of Mirrors in Art: From Ancient Times to the Present, Lewiston NY 1999
1999

'Velázquez', Archivo español de arte, LXXII/288, 1999
1999

G. Finaldi, 'The Rokeby Venus', Art Quarterly, 1999, pp. 44-7
1999

D. Howarth, 'Mr. Morritt's Venus. Richard Ford, Sir William Stirling-Maxwell and the "cosas de España"', Apollo, CL/452, 1999, pp. 37-44
2000

J.M. Pita Andrade and Á. Aterido (eds), Corpus Velazqueño: Documentos y textos, Madrid 2000
2000

J. Brown, 'Velázquez y lo velazqueño: Los problemas de las atribuciones', Boletín del Museo del Prado, XVIII, 2000, pp. 51-69
2000

J. Brown, 'Introducción: Tres pintores cortesanos', in J. Brown (ed.), Velázquez, Van Dyck y Rubens, Madrid 2000, pp. 37-8
2001

C. Baker and T. Henry, The National Gallery: Complete Illustrated Catalogue, London 2001
2001

Á. Aterido Fernández, 'The First Owner of the Rokeby Venus', The Burlington Magazine, CXLIII/1175, 2001, pp. 91-4
2002

J. Portús, Pinturas mitológicas de Velázquez, Madrid 2002
2002

A. Prater, Venus at Her Mirror: Velázquez and the Art of Nude Painting, Munich 2002
2002

L.K. Stein, 'Three Paintings, a Double Lyre, Opera, and Eliche's Venus', in S.L. Stratton-Pruitt (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Velázquez, Cambridge 2002, pp. 170-235
2002

L. Schwartz, 'Velázquez and Two Poets of the Baroque', in S.L. Stratton-Pruitt (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Velázquez, Cambridge 2002, pp. 130-49
2003

R. Verdi (ed.), Saved! 100 Years of the National Art Collections Fund (exh. cat. Hayward Gallery, 23 October 2003 - 18 January 2004), London 2003
2004

Z. Véliz, 'Signs of Identity in Lady with a Fan by Diego Velázquez: Costume and Likeness Reconsidered', Art Bulletin, LXXXVI/1, 2004, pp. 75-95
2004

A.J. Morales and C. Sánchez de las Heras (eds), Symposium Internacional Velázquez, Actas, 8-11 de noviembre, Sevilla, 1999, Seville 2004
2005

A.E.P. Sánchez et al., Velázquez a Capodimonte (exh. cat. Museo di Capodimonte, 19 March - 19 June 2005), Naples 2005
2006

F. Pacheco and A. Palomino, Lives of Velázquez, trans. N.A. Mallory, London 2006
2006

D. Carr (ed.), Velázquez (exh. cat. The National Gallery, 18 October 2006 - 21 January 2007), London 2006
2007

A. Anselmi, 'Il VII Marchese del Carpio da Roma a Napoli', Paragone, LVIII/683, 2007, pp. 80-109
2007

E.M. Pozzolo, 'L'Ultima Cena di Tiziano e altri dipinti veneti del Cinquecento nella collezione d'Alba a Madrid', Studi tizianeschi, V, 2007, pp. 112-37
2007

J. Portús, Velázquez's Fables: Mythology and Sacred History in the Golden Age (exh. cat. Museo Nacional del Prado, 20 November 2007 - 24 February 2008), Madrid 2007
2008

F. Checa, Velázquez: The Complete Paintings, Antwerp 2008
2009

C. Baker, D. Howarth and P. Stirton, The Discovery of Spain: British Artists and Collectors (exh. cat., Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh), Edinburgh 2009

About this record

If you know more about this work or have spotted an error, please contact us. Please note that exhibition histories are listed from 2009 onwards. Bibliographies may not be complete; more comprehensive information is available in the National Gallery Library.

Images

Insights

Since the National Gallery acquired Diego Velázquez’s ‘Rokeby Venus’ in 1906, it has become one of the most popular paintings in our collection. But who is the mysterious Venus looking at and what do we know about the origins of this work by the greatest painter of 17th century Spain? Find out all this and more with Francesca Whitlum-Cooper, Associate Curator of Paintings 1600-1800, as she walks us through the surprising history of the only surviving nude by Velázquez.

This is a YouTube video player. Below the video are the title and the view time.

The Rokeby Venus: Velázquez’s only surviving nude | The National Gallery

View time: 27:25

You can't see this YouTube video because you haven't accepted marketing cookies. Please adjust your cookie preferences or watch the video on YouTube.

More works by Diego Velázquez

(Showing 6 of 8 works)

Christ contemplated by the Christian Soul

Diego Velázquez

Tied to a column, Christ has collapsed to the floor. His limp body, tilted head and pained expression show his exhaustion and suffering. Velázquez shows the moment after the Flagellation, when Christ was flogged by Roman soldiers – we can see the sticks and whip they used lying in the foreground....

Room 30

Christ in the House of Martha and Mary

Diego Velázquez

A maid pounds garlic in a mortar, and other ingredients lie scattered on the table: fish, eggs, a shrivelled red pepper and an earthenware jug probably containing olive oil. An older woman points towards her, as if giving her instructions or telling her off for working too hard, or she may be dra...

Room 30

Philip IV hunting Wild Boar (La Tela Real)

Diego Velázquez

Philip IV, King of Spain, and his entourage are hunting boar in a forest clearing. The King appears on horseback just right of centre, weapon pointed at a charging boar, accompanied by his first minister and possibly his two brothers. To the far left another boar is being attacked by a pack of do...

Room 30

Philip IV of Spain

Diego Velázquez

Velázquez painted many portraits of Philip IV, King of Spain, throughout his reign. This is the last painted image of the King by the man who served as his court artist from 1623. He looks middle-aged, and tired: his sagging flesh and puffy eyes suggest the weight of responsibility resting on his...

Room 30

Philip IV of Spain in Brown and Silver

Diego Velázquez

Philip IV, King of Spain, was normally shown in fairly sombre clothing, so the unusual splendour of his costume here suggests that this work was made to celebrate something particular. In 1632, he wore a similar outfit for an important ceremony in which the Cortes of Castile pledged an oath of al...

Room 30

Portrait of Archbishop Fernando de Valdés

Diego Velázquez

Fernando de Valdés has an imposing stare. His black cloak – an expanse of plain, heavy fabric – makes him appear larger than he really is, and a matching bishop’s hat indicates his prestigious status within the Church. His clothing and the opulent red curtain trimmed with gold, like the chair on...

Room 30

Saint John the Evangelist on the Island of Patmos

Diego Velázquez

On the Greek island of Patmos, Saint John the Evangelist had a vision of the Woman of the Apocalypse, which he recorded in the New Testament Book of Revelation. Here he sits with an oversized book in his lap, his quill pen poised, and looks towards the tiny illuminated female figure hovering in t...

Room 30

The Immaculate Conception

Diego Velázquez

A young woman floats above a landscape, standing on a translucent moon and with a crown of 12 stars. This imagery is based on the New Testament Book of Revelation. In it, Saint John the Evangelist records his vision of the Woman of the Apocalypse, who bears a male child and is threatened by a dra...

Room 30

You've viewed 6 of 8 works