The Rokeby Venus

Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez who died on August 6th 1660, was the leading artist in the court of King Philip IV, and one of the most important painters of the Spanish Golden Age and Baroque period . One of his most famous and most sensual paintings , ‘The Rokeby Venus’ was completed between 1647 and 1651 and was probably painted during one of his visits to Italy. It depicts the goddess Venus lying on a bed looking in to a mirror held by her son Cupid. It hangs in The National Gallery in London where it achieved further fame after an attack to the canvas with a cleaver by the suffragette Mary Richardson on 10th March 1914. The attack was ‘provoked’ by the arrest the previous day of Emily Pankhurst and Richardson left seven large slashes to the picture especially to the back of Venus. She said in court that she didn’t like “the way men visitors gaped at it all day long”. Fortunately the painting was repaired by the National Gallery head of restoration, Helmut Ruhemann.