Christ Child Pilgrim

Very few works by Josefa de Óbidos, particularly those of larger size, are conserved in such perfect condition as this Christ Child Pilgrim, which allows us to see all the artist’s resources during this more mature phase, in which she produced a significant part of her best work. The well-preserved glazes reveal Josefa’s remarkable technique in the skin tones and the treatment of the hair, as well as the bright colours of the child’s clothes, the play of shadows on the pleats of the gowns and the detail of the accessories. The standing figure, with a staff in his right hand and the broad pilgrim’s hat in the other, stands out against a dark background of trees in a landscape that, starting from the child’s feet in a detailed carpet of flowers, stretches to the horizon, with the light of dawn entering the upper right-hand corner. The brush strokes are precise, unhesitant, imitating the textures of the fabrics, reflections in the jewellery and the softness of infant skin. Josefa is at the peak of her career. At this time, she was focusing largely on painting isolated works. She would only produce one more large altarpiece, for the Misericórdia de Peniche, in 1679, an institution in which family members held important positions. 1676 is the year when Josefa also signed three still lifes, one of which is now in Casa dos Patudos, in Alpiarça, and the other two in the Anselmo Braamcamp Freire Library, in Santarém¹. Although she uses some elements of the style she developed alongside her father, these paintings are clearly an effort to overcome the repetitive models used in the workshop. Some elements are composed on the diagonal, the objects are arranged on various planes and the flowers and cakes scattered across the composition produce a dense arrangement that fills the entire canvas. In the Santarém paintings, which are also in an excellent condition, it is possible to see the same sense of exactitude in the reproduction of objects, the interplay of reflections and textures present in this Christ Child Pilgrim. Perhaps it is no coincidence that these were all works that Josefa signed and dated. In artistic and personal terms, Josefa was by then an independent woman. She had achieved significant economic emancipation and was living in a large house on Rua de São Pedro where, after the death of her youngest sister, Antónia, the previous year, her two nieces, one of whom was her god-daughter and had the same name, came to keep her company. Her father, Baltazar Gomes Figueira, had died in 1674, leaving her the Quinta da Capeleira, in the outskirts of Óbidos, which was one of her favourite places. The Hieronymite monk Friar João de São Pedro who, under the pseudonym Damião de Froes Perym, published the first short biography of Josefa de Óbidos, part of the first volume of his Theatro Heroíno, a collection of lives of famous women in various areas, referred to the painter as a devoted religious woman who spent most of her time on spiritual reading, playing down, wherever possible, the professional side of her artistic practice, claiming that only «when pestered or pursued by curiosity, or for devotion and respect, did she use her art».

While Josefa de Ayala’s artistic production was always clearly marked by her own spirituality, strongly influenced by Saint Teresa of Ávila, that presence is even more heightened in the production that characterises her final years, with the creation of isolated figures representing the Agnus Dei, or childhood images of Saint John the Baptist and the Christ Child, clad with lace or dressed as pilgrims, accompanied by symbols of the passion, at times presented as images, framed by open curtains, at others inscribed in cartouches or carefully painted wreathes of flowers. The first of these “Children” was perhaps the one Josefa painted in 1673, part of the series on the life of Saint Teresa that she painted the previous year for the Carmelite convent of Cascais, and its repetition in Josefa’s painting must be related to the great importance that the Saint of Ávila placed on this devotion. Saint Teresa sought to make sure every convent had a devotional image of the Christ Child, which highlighted both His human fragility and the strength to face His divine destiny. Some of these images still exist, such as El Esposito at the monastery of Medina del Campo, and El Pelegrinito, at the Carmelite convent of Valladolid (FIG. 1). Saint Teresa herself is at times represented as a young pilgrim, referring to a childhood adventure with her brother when they ran away to look for Jerusalem and seek Christian martyrdom. The scene is part of the group of engravings started by Adriaen Collaert and Cornelis Galle, in 1613, in preparation for the beatification of Saint Teresa, and it was reproduced in painting several times (FIG. 2). Because of that influence, worship of the Christ Child was particularly intense during the second half of the seventeenth century. Carmelites such as Mother Marguerite du Sainte Sacrément (1619-1648), who professed in the convent of Beaune, inspired devotional works such as Explication de la dévotion à la Sainte Enfance du Jésus-Christ [An explanation of the devotion to the Holy Childhood of Jesus Christ] or Petite Office du Saint Enfant Jesus [Little Book of the Holy Child Jesus), from 1657, published the following year and of which there were several editions until the end of the century.

It was that devotional strength of the Carmelites that encouraged the church to overcome some of its distrust regarding this type of constructed image because of the amount of profanity they contained. Vitor Serrão recalled an excerpt of the Synodal Constitutions of Évora, from 1633, which prohibited figurations of the Child «wearing shamefully profane clothing, appearing as soldiers, pilgrims or “amorini” with their indecent insignia»².

Meanwhile, another testimony from the same time helps us assess the impact these images had on seventeenth century devotion. A text coeval to the painting, the autobiography of Antónia Margarida de Castelo Branco (1652-1717), a married noblewoman who professed in 1680 with the name Soror Antónia do Santíssimo Sacramento in the convent of Madre de Deus in Xabregas, where she entered as a novice the year before, describes the episode that sparked her religious vocation when, in exactly the same year, 1676, when Josefa painted Christ Child Pilgrim, she visited the house of a sick woman «and feeling a strong urge to raise my eyes to the ceiling, I resisted for feeling a little mortified and because it would have no particular purpose; however, neglecting my duties as a nurse, I raised my eyes violently and impulsively without realising there was no reason to do so and when I became aware of my neglect, I found before my eyes a Christ Child painted on the ceiling of the house, with the Cross and the martyrs at his back, so beautiful and gracious that it softly stole my heart. He had his eyes fixed on me and I felt that he was affectionately offering me nothing but torments and was telling my soul that he would help me bear them. This might have been the effect of the painting, but the effects of tenderness, love and humility with which I offered myself were not; I felt such loving emotions that I had to use all my ingenuity so that the difference might not be noticed, finding ways – without lying – to make it seem that the tears that spontaneously came to my eyes were due to the memory of my labours, and with this disguising many things that I wanted to conceal»³. While this type of image raised doubts among some clerics, as we have seen, it strongly impressed many women with a mystical nature. Josefa painted them repeatedly until the end of her life, with one known “Christ Child” dating from 1684, the year she died.