It is worth noticing that in other non-European traditions - in Indian art, Persian art, African art, Pre Columbian art - nakedness is never supine in this way. And if, in these traditions, the theme of a work is sexual attraction, it is likely to show active sexual love as between two people, the woman as active as the man, the actions of each... See more

The mirror was often used as a symbol of the vanity of woman. The moralizing, however, was mostly hypocritical.

You painted a naked woman because you enjoyed looking at her, you put a mirror in her hand and you called the painting Vanity , thus morally condemning the woman whose nakedness you had depicted for your own pleasure.