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 Venus controversial in France also. In northern Europe it was seen as acceptable to portray artfully draped nudes. Examples include Rubens's "Minerva Victrix", of 1622–25, which shows Marie de' Medici with an uncovered breast, and Anthony van Dyck's 1620 painting, "The Duke and Duchess of Buckingham as Venus and Adonis". In 17th-century Spanish art, even in the depiction of sibyls, nymphs, and goddesses, the female form was always chastely covered. No painting from the 1630s or 1640s, whether in the genre, portrait, or history format, shows a Spanish female with her breasts exposed; even uncovered arms were only rarely shown. In