Rokeby Venus with blond hair, Velázquez's Venus is a brunette. The female figure can be identified as Venus because of the presence of her son, Cupid. Venus gazes into a mirror held by Cupid, who is without his usual bow and arrows. When the work was first inventoried, it was described as "a nude woman", probably owing to its controversial nature. Venus looks outward at the viewer of the painting through her reflected image in the mirror. However, the image is blurred and reveals only a vague reflection of her facial characteristics; the reflected image of the head is much larger than
Cupid complaining to Venus experts have dated it to c.1526-7. It is more elaborate than the others, and in a larger format than most, except for the similarly sized Güstrow version and a larger (life size) version at the Galleria Borghese, Rome dated to 1531. Cranach had painted Venus and Cupid together since at least his 1509 painting now held by the Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg. The work in the National Gallery was originally painted on a wooden panel. The painting is undated, but Koepplin and Falk have suggested a date of 1526-7. Known in German as "Venus mit Amor als Honigdieb" ("Venus with