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sensuality in a sophisticated and amusing fashion. For example, the comic strip frame near the bottom of the ride side of the box (fig. 6) nicely inverts both the composition and the subject of Picot's Cupid Fleeing from Psyche on the same side. The artist of the comic strip shows a woman in bed as does Picot, but the modern female clutches her sheets around her, and cries <> while a fully-clothed man enters her room on the left. The theme of love is clear in Veronese's painting, where Cupid binds together the ankles of Venus and Mars, but it is simultaneously obscured and reaffirmed by Rauschenberg. While

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Fig. 6 Robert Rauschenberg, Odalisque, detail, right side of box. Museum Ludwig, Cologne

Venus is visible in the early state of Odalisque (fig. 2), she is painted out in the later stage (fig. 5). On the other hand, although Cupid is eliminated from both versions, he is replaced and presumably his role is assumed by Michelangelo's two putti.
Although the erotic aspect of the imagery is unarguable, even a cursory study of Rauschenberg's Odalisque reveals that more than one theme is being developed in it. In fact, there is a complex and sophisticated interweaving and overlapping of images and allusions, in a manner that is entirely consistent with the idea of Rauschenberg's multiplicity. The rooster provides an especially good demonstration of this layering of significance. For example, in addition to its sexual 

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Fig. 7 Correggio, Rape of Ganymede. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna


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