Josefa de Ayala Figueira, also known as “Josefa de Óbidos”

When Josefa de Ayala y Cabrera was born in Seville, in 1630, Francisco Herrera, the Elder, one of the most important painters in the city, became her godfather at her baptism on 20 February in the church of San Vicente. Her father, Baltazar Gomes Figueira (1604–1670), had been one of a contingent of young Portuguese men recruited to defend Cádiz and had ended up settling in Seville to learn the art of painting. Nevertheless, only three years after passing the exam that allowed him to paint professionally, struggling at the start of his career, he returned to Portugal in 1634, with his wife Catarina Camacho de Ayalla Cabrera Romero, who was pregnant with their son Francisco, 4-year-old Josefa and her sister, 2-year-old Luísa. The couple lived at first in Peniche before settling in Óbidos, the painter’s region of origin, and had another two daughters, Antónia and Basília, and two sons, António, who was also a painter but went on to become a Benedictine monk in Alcobaça, and José Ortiz, a parish priest and translator of a well-known Jesuit catechism. Baltazar’s family – merchants and members of the clergy – who were established in the Óbidos region, supported him in securing commissions in the region and helping him achieve some fame. In addition to his newly acquired skill, Baltasar brought from Seville a huge collection of prints and a significant novelty that had not yet been seen in Portuguese painting: the still life, more specifically the Sevillian bodegón, in which the elements are arranged regularly on a platform or window under an oblique light that highlights the textures and colours against a black background. Baltazar’s method consisted in creating individualised models of baskets of cakes, fruits, vegetables, earthenware, etc. in small paintings, and later combining those elements in different arrangements, to his own taste or that of his clients. Fluctuations in quality can be noted in the workshop’s output, perhaps due to the participation of other family members, such as António, before he adopted religious life, or the painter José da Costa who, in early 1659, had married Antónia de Ayala. Looking at the work produced in that shared workshop, it is often difficult to distinguish the ‘hands’ of its two best painters, Josefa and Baltazar, who were probably the most regular collaborators. It is worth noting that we are only aware of still lifes signed by Baltazar up until 1646, when Josefa was producing her first paintings and engravings, and she, in turn, only signed hers after her father’s death in 1674. Who produced what in between those dates is often unclear, with the months series as an example of their collaboration: Baltazar’s touch can be seen in the very ‘Herrerian’ landscapes, with Josefa’s hand being more notable in the groupings of objects, fruits and cakes in the foreground. The inscription ‘Óbidos1668’ became a kind of stamp of the workshop.

Josefa started participating in her father’s workshop and assisting with his projects at a young age. Between 1644 and 1646, Baltazar received commissions in Coimbra, including the altarpiece of the Church of Graça, belonging to the Augustine Order of Coimbra. Josefa is believed to have stayed, during those years, in the convent of Santa Ana, belonging to the female branch of the Order. The convent documentation gives no hint of this stay, but her signature on her first engraving, a beautiful St Catherine dated 1646, confirms her presence in the city. That same year, she made another small engraving of St Joseph and, in 1653, the University of Coimbra included in its published statutes an allegory of wisdom, signed by Josefa and perhaps her best engraving. It is likely that the young artist came into contact with engravers who worked for the university. The small and much more interesting painting of Penitent Magdalene (Museu de Machado de Castro) appears to be one of a batch of copper plates purchased by Baltazar Gomes Figueira, and the Visitation (Gaudium Magnum collection) was painted on a half plate engraved by Balthasar Moncornet (1600–1668), although how this might have come into Josefa’s possession remains a mystery. Coimbra didn’t have a great deal to offer, but the young painter was able to see a number of works by the later-mannerist duo Simão Rodrigues and Domingos Vieira Serrão, and some paintings by André Reinoso, more naturalist and capable of a beautiful handling of light. These were painters whose works Josefa could see closer to home: Rodrigues in the altarpiece of Leiria Cathedral, Reinoso in Óbidos and the nearby convent of Gaeiras. A certain idealisation in the simplified drawing of the faces, the taste for ‘sweet’ figures with gentle gestures, and a pronounced but undramatic chiaroscuro reveal the mark of these masters in Josefa’s painting, not to mention the guiding figure of her father, with whom she started painting at a young age. The first paintings on copper date from 1647. We know of various versions of a Mystical Marriage of Saint Catherine, based on an engraving by Cornelis Cort, who reproduced a lost painting by Titian. In the following decade, Josefa’s paintings were mostly small oils on coppers, at times small enough to be worn as jewellery or accessories. They were almost always based on engravings and often repeated the same models. But they also reveal a growing technical refinement, as demonstrated perfectly in the Virgin with Child (Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga), dated 1657. In the early nineteenth century, Cirillo Wolkmar Machado saw in these paintings ‘the patience of the Gothics,’ undoubtedly influenced by the detailed representation of fabrics and accessories, whilst also regarding her to be one the best altarpiece painters of the time.

The switch from collaborating with her father on still lifes and executing small pieces on copper to the painting of large altarpieces must have occurred when Josefa was approaching the age of 30 and her skills were well known, at least within the Óbidos area. One of the first large-scale works, dating from before 1660, is thought to have been the large panel (on wood) in the chapel of Columbeira (Bombarral) with Saints Justa and Rufina. The saints were already worshipped locally, and the chapel had stone figures of the sisters who were the patron saints of their native Seville, which perhaps inspired a particular devotion in Josefa or her mother. We do not know whether this was a professional commission or a devotional donation, but Josefa handled the Saints’ iconography with some freedom. She gave the figures a family resemblance, consistent with them being sisters, and depicted them with the martyr’s palm, omitting, however, the clay pots, common in Sevillian iconography, and instead embellishing the young potters in rich jewels and each holding a book, a symbol of wisdom that the painter used whenever possible. What was undoubtedly a commission was the Saint Catherine altarpiece at the top of the epistle nave of the church of Santa Maria de Óbidos, which Josefa signed and dated 1661. In the largest panels, Josefa brought together the essential steps of the saint’s hagiography: on the side panels, vertical compositions of the Dispute with the Doctors and the Destruction of the Martyrdom Machine, crowned by the Mystical Marriage to Jesus, in which she picked up, in the Virgin and Child, the composition she had used in the small but beautiful copper from 1657. The iconographic novelty that Josefa introduced, which is fairly consistent with what we know of the painter’s line of thought, was the inclusion of the figures of Saint Magdalene and Saint Teresa of Ávila in small panels flanking the top painting, accentuating the altarpiece’s exaltation of the ‘mystical spouses’ of Christ.

Indeed, the group brings together what appears to have been the backbone of Josefa’s spirituality. In her first works, she depicted the figure of the saint of Alexandria repeatedly, in the engraving she made in 1646 and in a series of coppers, of which five versions are known, in which she represented the Mystical Marriage of Saint Catherine from the engraving reproducing the Titian painting. It is likely that the figure of Catherine, a cultured young woman of great beauty who refused to marry the emperor in favour of a mystic union with Christ, fascinated the young painter, who also favoured celibacy. Catherine was also the name of her mother, who was presumed to be of noble descent, her own mother having been the first wife of the sergeant José Ortiz, and it is very likely that she was a guiding figure for Josefa, although very little is known about her. She survived almost the entire family, never stopped speaking Spanish, and despite her noble descent, which she made a point of emphasising, she was the only member of the family who didn’t know how to read. Beyond the filial bond, it is natural that Josefa was proud of that noble lineage on her mother’s side.

Saint Magdalene was the embodiment of the repentant sinner and the possibility of salvation through prayer and penitence. Josefa devoted two of her best paintings to her. One was the copper belonging to the Museu Machado de Castro, from the 1650s, with the figure of the penitent saint bent over a book, with a crucifix and flagellant whips, lit only by a small oil lamp, which creates the beautiful effect of a luminous halo that makes the objects, face, bust and arms of Magdalene stand out from the dark background. The other, also a copper, but larger and later, from 1679, belongs to the Louvre and shows Magdalene at the moment of her death, comforted by a group of angels who support her and ease her transition with music and caresses. Josefa demonstrates a more mature painting technique here, composed on various planes and creating an atmosphere that is simultaneously seductive and dramatic, recalling certain groups sculpted by her contemporary Luisa Roldán, perhaps both indirectly inspired by the Rubens model engraved by Pieter de Bailliu.

Finally, Saint Teresa seems to have been the greatest spiritual model for Josefa and the thinking that guided a large part of her painting work. Beyond devotional admiration, Josefa must have been particularly appreciative of the figure of an independent and fierce woman, who also defended female work as the basis of the independence of her religious foundations. Josefa made various images of Saint Teresa, some very small, which could be worn as ornaments next to the body, a close relationship that would bring her closer to the Carmelite convents. In 1664, she painted a Holy Family, lost in a fire in 2014, for the Bussaco retreat, founded in 1628 for the Discalced Carmelites. In 1672, she painted a similar canvas for the Carmelite convent of Nossa Senhora da Piedade in Cascais, with the addition of scenes from the life of Saint Teresa based on the engravings of Adriaen Collaert and Cornelis Cort, published in 1612 and republished in 1622, at the time of the canonisation of the saint of Ávila. Josefa made use of the engravings to define the composition of five paintings in the series, but homed in on the centre of the images in order to completely fill the canvases with the saint and the other figures in the various scenes: the Vision of the Most Holy Trinity, the Transverberation, with two angels comforting her, while another touches her heart with a burning arrow, Teresa receiving the necklace of St Joseph and the Virgin and the Physician saint inspired by the Holy Spirit. The scale Josefa gives to the figures, the unity of the warm colours, and the centrality of the figure of Saint Teresa unify the group to produce a sequence of great coherence. For the same church, Josefa painted another Vision of St John of the Cross, a painting almost identical to that which she would create for the College of Nossa Senhora do Carmo in Figueiró dos Vinhos. These three points, the locations of Carmelite establishments, were, of all commissions Josefa received, the most distant from her local area, which indicates the painter’s special relationship with the reformed Carmelites.

Following the Santa Maria de Óbidos altarpiece, there was a clear change in Josefa’s path, which came to be filled with altarpiece works: in the early 1660s she is thought to have painted the three canvases (St Anthony, Virgin with Child and St Francis) for the arch of the hermitage of Dagorda; for the Monastery of Cós she made a large panel with the Remission of Souls from Purgatory, still in situ; and probably also the Virgin, Child and Saint Anthony (Museu do Patriarcado, Lisbon). In 1669, she painted the Adoration of the Shepherds (MNAA) for the Capuchin convent of Santa Madalena de Alcobaça, and probably at around the same time made an altarpiece for the convent of Vale-Bem Feito, near Lourinhã, of which two canvases still exist, showing the Saints Paula and Eustochia, today in the sacristy of the main church, and the Virgin of Pópulo at the Thermal Hospital of Caldas da Rainha. In the late 1670s she is thought to have produced the separated but complete altarpiece of the Misericórdia de Peniche, with a large Visitation as the central panel. Other dispersed objects are thought to have corresponded to separated altarpiece groups. This is the case with the Pentecost (Museu Machado de Castro) from the late 1660s, originally from the Sé Nova in Coimbra and, in the same museum, a Lactation of St Bernard, perhaps part of an altarpiece from the convent of Alcobaça praised by Murphy. The Annunciation (MNAA), from 1676, was perhaps part of the same group as the Rest on the Flight into Egypt (Braamcamp Freire Library, Santarém) with the same date and similar dimensions, just as the Supper of the Holy Family (Museu de Évora), dated 1674, was likely associated with a Holy Family in Egypt (private collection), which uses the same model for the Christ Child. All these works demonstrate that, for some twenty years, the painter devoted herself intensively to professional altarpiece painting. Unfortunately, we are not aware of any contracts commissioning these altarpieces to Josefa that would give us an idea of the going rates, but judging by the properties she purchased and the wealth she accumulated during her life, one can only assume that her career was reasonably successful.

Not all her income came from painting, however. Her activity as a painter of altarpieces required formal contracts and, accordingly, a status as legal person that was not automatically granted to a single woman. Josefa is thought to have obtained emancipation from her father that, in practice, gave her a status similar to that of a widow, making it possible for her to manage her own assets and commercial transactions. She took full advantage of this new status to invest her income in land, houses, leases and loans, which gave her a considerable fortune, documented in the inventory of assets carried out after her death. In her will, she prepared for her own funeral services on which, including donations to the poor and payment of the musicians, brotherhoods and clerics, she spent 48,150 reais, a not insignificant sum. She had a large house in front of the church of S. Pedro de Óbidos, where she lived probably from 1664 with her nieces and some servants. She owned another two smaller houses on the same street, a winepress on Rua do Loureiro and, nearby, some cultivated land and an estate, Casal da Capeleira. There she kept a modest number of cattle: six cows, eight calves, a donkey and its foal, twenty sheep, three rams, twenty goats, four wethers and various kids, all valued at 49,850 reais.

The furnishing of the houses reveals furniture of high quality and variety: sideboards, desks, chests and trunks, a contador (cabinet) from India and another with nine drawers with ivory locks, stools of dyed leather, cushions and carpets from India, Greece and the Berber regions. The bedroom had a ‘plain single bed of African Blackwood’, with a decorated canopy with two sets of curtains, one for summer, in Indian cotton, and the other for winter, in a green woollen serge. The valuation of the silver dinnerware came to 42,160 reais, with cutlery, two salvers, a tray and a large engraved pitcher.

The fact that Josefa remained single was perhaps what created the image of the artist as a lowkey figure intent on domestic contemplation. What is described in the inventory of assets does not appear to corroborate that perception. Her clothing was rich, and even rather extravagant, and the significant collection of jewellery was valued at 34,250 reais. It included religious pieces, such as rosaries, lockets and reliquaries, but also rather ostentatious secular pieces, such as a bodice ornament, in gold, with red and white enamel and seventeen crystals, or a gold choker consisting of twenty-six articulated pieces. The list of clothes includes gloves with long cuffs embroidered in gold and silk, doublets, camlets and capes, made from taffeta and Indian silks and adorned with lace and embroidery in silk and silver, some with flower patterns, others more discreet, but others in bright, garish colours. Even without making assumptions as to her tastes and vanities, these elements allow us to define a high economic status, higher than would be common for painters of the time, even her own father, whose inventory of assets we have also examined. This would have given her an elevated position in the town of Óbidos, a prestige that was undoubtedly useful to her as a painter and as a single woman living autonomously and independently.

Part of her fortune came from certain speculative activities allowed during the difficult years following the Restoration. Between 1663 and 1678, she purchased a considerable number of aforamentos [emphytheutic leases]. We know of 31 transactions. Furthermore, in 1677 and 1678, she loaned money with interest at least three times, to the total value of 85,000 reais. Other members of the family, her own father, uncles and brothers, engaged in similar activities and frequently appeared as witnesses or proxies for Josefa’s speculative activities, which shows that the painter, although living alone, continued to enjoy a certain amount of familial support.

In the short biography that Froes Perym, the pseudonym of the Hieronymite friar João de São Pedro, included in the 1st volume of his Theatro Heroíno, published in 1736, little more than a century after the painter’s death, he describes her as having success in painting with ‘acclaim from the illustrious’ and social acceptance with ‘praise for being honest, living all her life in chaste celibacy’. Friar João seemed to want to emphasise the artist’s amateurism, claiming that she ‘did not wish to vulgarise in trade what was merely curiosity and enjoyment,’ which clearly did not correspond to the truth. Perhaps his intention was to accentuate the painter’s intellectual and religious stance: ‘for the greater part of the day and night Dona Josefa devoted to learning from books, to which she was most inclined, especially spiritual and devotional works.’ He was referring mainly to the last years of the painter’s life, when Josefa’s spirituality deserves to be regarded as more than commonplace.

In her final years, the painter devoted herself largely to isolated paintings, most of them devotional. She signed three still lifes in 1676 (Casa dos Patudos and Anselmo Braamcamp Freire Library), with rather more complex and dense compositions than were usual in her father’s workshop, with elements arranged on various planes, occupying almost the entire surface of the canvas. But it was religious paintings of isolated figures that interested her the most: Agnus Dei (Museu de Évora and Congregados church in Braga), Little St Johns or the Christ Childs, sometimes as small pilgrims or carrying the symbols of the passion, images often composed within cartouches or crowns of flowers, which contributed to an idea of Josefa as a naive painter, which is perhaps the greatest misreading of her work. On one hand, that ‘sweetness’ is not feminine. Other painters, such as Murillo or Carlo Dolci, focused on creating images with a tender beauty that, as Joseph Imrode convincingly demonstrated, was consciously sought as the incarnation of the concept of ‘Dulcedo Dei’, meditation on ‘sweetness’ as one of the characteristics of the divine, present in St Bonaventure, St Augustine, and St Bernard and revitalised in the seventeenth century under the influence of texts by St Teresa. Many of the images produced by Josefa de Óbidos in this final stage of her life can in fact be understood as direct repetitions of images mentioned in the writings of the saint of Ávila and forming part of her iconography. They are recreations, like ‘bodegones to the divine’, of small images of Jesus as a child, such as El Esposito or El Pelegrinito, which merited devotion in the first convents of Saint Teresa. On the other hand, works recently brought to light, such as Reading the Fate of the Christ Child (Museum of Detroit), show an unusual capacity to incorporate iconographic novelties taken from the religious realm. Raised in the heart of a family of several friars and priests, Josefa shared with them a solid spiritual culture, essentially marked by female figures who fascinated her both in religious terms and as a woman. She was the most important Portuguese woman painter before the modern era and is far more than an interesting gender study. A firm believer in the teachings she received from her father, which she developed into a professional practice that she embraced very early, acting in a relatively confined space where she had the support of her family network, Josefa painted and lived a life of unusual independence, and truly created her own artistic language of Portuguese baroque.