Looking back

According to Vasari, Giorgione maintained "that in one picture the painter could display various aspects without the necessity of walking round his work, and could even display, at one glance, all the different aspects that could be presented by the figure of a man, even though the latter should assume several attitudes, — a thing which could not be accomplished by sculpture without compelling the observer to change his place, so that the work is not presented at one view, but at different views.

He declared, further, that he could execute a single figure in painting, in such a manner as to show the front, back, and profiles of both sides at one and the same time. ...He painted a nude figure, with its back turned to the spectator, and at the feet of the figure was a limpid stream, wherein the reflection of the front was painted with the utmost exactitude: on one side was a highly burnished corselet, of which the figure had divested itself, and wherein the left side was reflected perfectly, every part of the figure being clearly apparent: and on the other side was a mirror, in which the right profile of the nude form was also exhibited. By this beautiful and admirable fancy, Giorgione desired to prove that painting is, in effect, the superior art, requiring more talent and demanding higher effort."

This painting has been lost to time or was never created.