Rokeby Venus 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 a mirror. She is often described as looking at herself on the mirror, although this is physically impossible since viewers can see her face reflected in their direction. This phenomenon is known as the Venus effect. In a number of ways the painting represents a pictorial departure, through
Rokeby (poem) J. G. Lockhart reported that bookshops in Oxford were besieged by customers wanting to read the poem, and bets were placed as to whether "Rokeby" would outsell Byron's recent "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage". Byron himself wrote urgently from Italy asking his publisher John Murray to send him a copy. In the event "Rokeby" sold ten thousand copies in the first three months, a figure which would have been the making of any other poet, but which was a marked falling-off from the sales of Scott's previous poems, and far less than he needed to pay his Abbotsford debts. One consequence of