Rokeby Venus as well as classical sculptures known to Velázquez, of which casts were made for Madrid. These were the "Sleeping Ariadne" now in the Pitti Palace, but then in Rome, of which Velázquez ordered a cast for the Royal collection in 1650–51, and the Borghese Hermaphroditus, a sleeping hermaphrodite (picture to the right above), now in the Louvre, of which a cast was sent to Madrid, and which also emphasises the curve from hip to waist. However, the combination of elements in Velázquez's composition was original. The "Rokeby Venus" may have been intended as a pendant to a sixteenth-century Venetian painting
Pardo Venus arm drawn up to support the head and the other resting near the crotch, is essentially the same as that in Giorgione's "Dresden Venus", which after his death in 1510 was completed by Titian. The pose apart, the paintings offer a strong contrast, with the noisy and hectic scene in the "Pardo Venus" completely different from the tranquil and deserted landscape in Dresden. Around 1534 Titian had painted the "Venus of Urbino", and a repetition of this from 1545, perhaps a lost recorded "Venus" sent to Charles V, "was the basis" for the "Venus and Musician" series, which exists in