Rokeby Venus 1997, the art historian Peter Cherry suggested that Velázquez sought to overcome the contemporary requirement for modesty by portraying Venus from the back. Even in the mid-18th century, an English artist who made a drawing of the Venus when it was in the collection of the Dukes of Alba noted it was "not hung up, owing to the subject". Another attitude to the issue was shown by Morritt, who wrote to Sir Walter Scott of his "fine painting of Venus' backside", which he hung above his main fireplace, so that "the ladies may avert their downcast eyes without difficulty and
Baron Rokeby a general in the British Army. The 6th Lord Rokeby had no surviving male issue and on his death in 1883 the barony and baronetcy became extinct. The Baronetcy, of Rokeby Park in the County of York, was created in the Baronetage of Great Britain on 2 March 1730 for the architect, collector and politician Thomas Robinson, with remainder, in default of male issue of his own, to his brothers and to his father’s second cousin Matthew Robinson, and the heirs male of their bodies. He was a descendant of William Robinson who acquired the Rokeby estate in the North