Giorgione, Sleeping Venus, 1507-10, perhaps commissioned by Girolamo Marcello, completed by Titian

• completed by Titian
• accompanied by a small cupid
  with a bird that was erased - identified her as a Venus
• hand and posture at a diagonal imitating landscape - woman as nature
  
• links Venice to Venus by sound and birth from water
  
• Sensuality: red lips imitate velvet, creamy body against silk - tactility in materials, body on display
• decorum is ignored as she is asleep - sleep takes you to a new world - concept linked to a bestseller The Dream of Polyphylus accompanied by a nymph
• focus on Venus "hiding" or pleasuring herself
  
• sleep - sense of voyeurism as viewer "creeps" on Venus
• Gynaeocological treatises at the time promoted female masturbation to procreate males and increase fertility
• linked to marriage - not considered strange as it is linked to marriage chests
  
• didactic messages inside chest
  
• reclining females were also shown
• may have been used as a talisman
• body was a space for marking out social/sexual status - jewels change throughout virginity, engagement and marriage