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
Thomas de Rokeby in 1407 and again in 1411. During his first term as High Sheriff Henry Percy, 1st Earl of Northumberland marched into Yorkshire against Henry IV of England and was stopped at Knaresborough by Thomas de Rokeby and a local levy. The two factions met again at the Battle of Bramham Moor where Rokeby was victorious and Percy killed. A grateful king awarded Rokeby the manor of Spofforth, previously the property of the Percys. He later served in the army of Henry V of England in France. He fought at the Battle of Agincourt in 1415, was present throughout most of