Rokeby Venus with blond hair, Velázquez's Venus is a brunette. The female figure can be identified as Venus because of the presence of her son, Cupid. Venus gazes into a mirror held by Cupid, who is without his usual bow and arrows. When the work was first inventoried, it was described as "a nude woman", probably owing to its controversial nature. Venus looks outward at the viewer of the painting through her reflected image in the mirror. However, the image is blurred and reveals only a vague reflection of her facial characteristics; the reflected image of the head is much larger than
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