THE ROKEBY VENUS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 13084, 25 January 1906, Page 5

THE ROKEBY VENUS.

PURCHASED FOR THE NATIONAL GALLERY. 1

By Telegraph—Press Association Copyright.

London, January 23. The Standard says the Velasquez's Venus has been purchased for the! National Gallery. A private patron has guaranteed the price, £40,000.

The picture was recently discovered at Rokeby, in orkshire, after having been missed lor 15 years. There has been great controversy regarding it. Soph experts consider that it is not a Venus, others that, the picture is not iin good taste. The majority, however, regard it as a. magnificent specimen of the great Spanish painter's' work. It represents. " the lithe beauty of a woman'# body." A critic says of the picture, "Velasquez accepted all that .makes a woman's form different from a man's, and by his very emphasis oil this recast the mould. . This invention or discovery of formal beauty lie wrought out with his matchless combination of firm and slippery in modelling, of plastic resistance with vital flow and airy elusivoness . . . of silver and rose in flesh that is brilliant at once and sober, and struck into a, strangeness of harmony by the nameless black of the drapery beside it. And all this with such certainty and soundness of craft that the canvas is almost as fresh as on the day it was painted.'' The picture was bought for £500 100 years ago, and recently it was valued at £50,000.