La Venus de la poesía

Julio Romero de Torres came from Córdoba and spent his career turning the women of Andalusia into solemn, timeless figures. He painted this reclining Venus in 1913. The model has long been identified as Raquel Meller, a singer of popular Spanish songs who was on her way to becoming one of the most famous performers in the country. Romero de Torres poses her as a classical Venus, a rose resting on the couch, but he grounds the scene in his own world. Behind her, small and exact, he set the towers and the Roman bridge of Córdoba under an evening sky, and on the couch he laid a slip of paper carrying his own signature.