Reflection of Pliny in Giovanni Bellini's "Woman with a mirror"

This article analyzes several other features of Giovanni Bellini's painting (Woman with a mirror) that substantiate the theory that the artist was depending on the Natural History and intending comparison to Pliny's descriptions of the nude Venuses created by the great Greek artists, Apelles and Praxiteles. It concludes with an examination of the techniques by which Bellini introduced ambiguity, specifically the nude's contemporary accessories and Bellini's reference to celebrated images of nudes by van Eyck, deliberate choices that evoked contemporary debates about the paragone and extended his old-age challenge to the world of contemporary artists. [Abridged Publication Abstract]