The Rokeby Venus (also known as The Toilet of Venus, Venus at her Mirror, Venus and Cupid, or La Venus del espejo) is a painting by Velázquez.

Completed between 1647 and 1651, and probably painted during the artist's visit to Italy, the work depicts the goddess Venus in a sensual pose, lying on a bed and looking into a mirror held by the Roman god of physical love, her son Cupid.

The painting is in the National Gallery, London.

Numerous works, from the ancient to the baroque, have been cited as sources of inspiration for Velázquez.

The nude Venuses of the Italian painters, such as Giorgione's Sleeping Venus (circa 1510) and Titian's Venus of Urbino (1538), are the main precedents.

In this work, Velázquez combines two established poses for Venus: recumbent on a couch or a bed, and gazing at a mirror.

She is often described as looking at herself on the mirror, although this is physically impossible since viewers can see her face reflected in their direction.

In a number of ways the painting represents a pictorial departure, through its central use of a mirror, and because it shows the body of Venus turned away from the observer of the painting.

The Rokeby Venus is the only surviving female nude by Velázquez.

Nudes are extremely rare in seventeenth-century Spanish art, which is policed actively by members of the Spanish Inquisition.

Despite this, nudes by foreign artists are keenly collected by the court circle, and this painting is toe be hung in the houses of Spanish courtiers until 1813, when it is brought to England to hang in Rokeby Park, Yorkshire.

The painting will be purchased in 1906 by National Art Collections Fund for the National Gallery, London.

Although attacked and badly damaged in 1914 by the suffragette Mary Richardson, it would soon be fully restored and returned to display.