The Rokeby Venus / The Toilet of Venus / Venus at her Mirror (1647-1651)
Diego Velázquez (Spanish, 1599–1660) - Contemporary Baroque
Location: National Gallery, London
”…On March 10, 1914, Suffragette Mary Richardson approached the “Rokeby Venus” of 1614-1615 by the great Spanish old master painter Diego Velázquez, which is the only one of his female nudes known to still be in existence, and smashed the glass that covered it. She then hacked at the canvas at least seven times with a meat cleaver before she was pulled off by a docent and by a policeman who happened to be in the museum. Ms. Richardson claimed that she took this action because one of her suffragette colleagues, Emmeline Pankhurst, had been arrested the previous day…” William Newton: http://blogofthecourtier.com
