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 (died 1356) "one who paid well for his victuals, and did not rob the poor" (i.e. he did not abuse the much criticized system of purveyance). The citizens of Cork, protesting at his recall, referred to his "evident good work" in maintaining law and order. Otway-Ruthven contrasts his early successes with his disappointing later record and notes that the 1350s were later seen as the crucial decade in which the English Crown lost control of much of Ireland until the sixteenth century. Thomas de Rokeby (died 1356) Sir Thomas de Rokeby (died 1356 or 1357) was a soldier and senior Crown official