An attempt to enact the famous quote by Voltaire, "Ce corps qui s'appelait et qui s'appelle encore le Saint-Empire romain n'était en aucune manière ni saint, ni romain, ni empire", in a contemporary Venn Diagram format. A joke; more about the VD popularity than of the HRE

As a result, Leda laid an egg from which later hatched Helen (who will become famous as Helen of Troy). We see Hermes (center), the messenger god, with his caduceus, who delivers the divine egg to Leda (right) and Tyndareus, Leda’s mortal husband (left).

I also don’t recall seeing any single model with such long red hair, very uncharacteristic for Bonnard. The painting (~40 x 60 cm, oil on canvas) was estimated at 350,000 euros and sold for six hundred. The type of mirrors placed above a fireplace was called 'trumeau' in French, not 'glace'.

In a rare twist, the maid this time manages to avert her eyes, successfully resisting the ominous pull of the mirror - an unusual moment of resistance against the forces of temptation and illusion that typically dominate Bosch’s visions.

The scene with a mirror is a curious fusion of all three known mirror motifs by Bosch. We see the familiar figure of the naked maid and the monstrous creatures surrounding her, yet here it is not the monster who holds the mirror, but a grotesque nun-like figure.

According to modern developmental psychology, children start recognizing themselves in a mirror between 18 and 24 months of age. Researchers often use the 'mirror test': if when looking in a mirror, the child touches himself, not mirror, it points to the formation of self-awareness

And yes, just like in Bellini’s work, the reflection of the hand in the large mirror is also distorted here.

I’ve never seen mirrors of that size and shape in mid-19th-century artworks. I’m not even sure they had the technical means to produce such mirrors at the time. Also, like its more famous look-alike by Bellini, this isn’t Giovane donna nuda allo specchio - it’s Donna nuda tra *due specchi*

Following the iconographic tradition, Madonna is depicted with her attributes, including a mirror, in this case held by putti, with small fragments of mother-of-pearl forming its frame

Pierrot in the center is the painter himself, and the sleeping figure on the left is his pupil, the German painter Anselm Feuerbach. The woman is Alice Ozy, the courtesan and frequent model who often joined their private gatherings at the famed Paris restaurant La Maison d’Or.