Rokeby Venus its central use of a mirror, and because it shows the body of Venus turned away from the observer of the painting. The "Rokeby Venus" is the only surviving female nude by Velázquez. Nudes were extremely rare in seventeenth-century Spanish art, which was policed actively by members of the Spanish Inquisition. Despite this, nudes by foreign artists were keenly collected by the court circle, and this painting was hung in the houses of Spanish courtiers until 1813, when it was brought to England to hang in Rokeby Park, Yorkshire. In 1906, the painting was purchased by National Art Collections Fund
Rokeby Preparatory School Headmaster Jason Peck revamped the uniform by replacing the black in the official school colours with blue in an attempt to bring the school more in line with his views on progressive education. He also scrapped the separate junior school uniform. To mark the occasion of the Rokeby Centenary, in 1977, Ian Gregory (who taught Latin at the time) composed the Rokeby School song, based loosely on the "Carmen Saeculare" of Horace, and put to music by Paul Sherrell, then Head of Music. A version of the song follows first in Latin and then in English: <poem>In urbe iuxta fluvium