Nativity

This small painting on copper by Josefa de Óbidos is directly based on a painting by the Dutch artist Abraham Bloemaert (1566-1652), now belonging to the Anton Herzog Ulrich Museum in Braunschweig, dating from around 1620 (FIG. 1)¹. Abraham Bloemaert was born in Gorinchem, but when he was still a young boy, in 1575, his father, the architect Cornelis Bloemaert I, moved to Utrecht, which strongly influenced the young Abraham, who was seduced by the dramatic chiaroscuro and close-up compositions of figures characteristic of the so-called Utrecht “Caravaggisti”. Influenced by the painter André Reinoso, who in 1627-28 had painted the altarpiece and the canvases above the arch of the side chapels in the church of Misericórdia de Óbidos, as well as a series of canvases for the neighbouring convent of S. Miguel das Gaeiras, Josefa was also particularly captivated by chiaroscuro and “lamplight” effects, which she explored frequently in this early stage of her career. It is no surprise that the painter chose as a model, from among the vast collection of prints that her father had brought from Seville, the reproduction of this painting by Abraham Bloemaert, full of contrasting light, perceptible even in the engravings that his son Cornelis Bloemaert II (1603-1692) made from the work (FIG. 2). Cornelis produced two engravings of the painting, one in 1627, the other at a later date and published in Paris by Pierre Landi. Josefa is thought to have used the first version, which inverts the original painted composition, as does her painting, and is thus the reverse of the version published in Paris. That version has a legend showing four Latin verses arranged over two lines, which strongly resembles the arrangement of squares used later by the painter in the “Months” series of 1668.

The painter followed the engraving almost without modification, with the Virgin behind the Child, who is perpendicular to the viewer and lying on a white sheet atop a sheaf of wheat – a clear Eucharist symbol. To the right, St Joseph holds a candle which he shields with his other hand, but the light it gives is clearly less than that radiating from the Child. In the background, which Josefa made darker than the original Bloemaert painting, we see the Annunciation to the shepherds in the right-hand corner and, on the opposite side, facing the front, the head of the cow at the manger and a basket with some cloths sticking out. Showing an element of naivety, and reviving some popular beliefs such as the light emanating from the Child overpowering that of St Joseph’s candle, the model clearly fitted with Josefa’s style and she would use it again, but giving herself more freedom, in the other copper that belonged to the Mário Roque collection.

We now believe that this painting dates back to the early 1650s, both for the faithful use of engravings, more evident in the first phase of her work, and for the lesser warmth of her colours and marked taste for shady atmospheres, as well as the fact that the painter did not yet appear to have defined the more pronounced features that would later become very characteristic of her work. Other very similar works can be included in her oeuvre from those years, for example the above-mentioned reformulation of the same model in the painting in the Mário Roque collection, but also the Virgin with Child, Young St John and an Angel, in a private collection², and the small copper Virgin with Child and St Anne, in the Bissaya Barreto Foundation, in Coimbra. These are all united by a more sober colour palette than that which Josefa developed later, and a more schematic rendering of the figures. These paintings can be chronologically situated between her first experiences, dating from 1647, like the versions of the Mystical Marriage of St Catherine or the Nativity with St Francis and St Clare, and the more luminous and already mature compositions, such as Virgin with Child from the Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, dated 1657. The Nativity belonging to the Gaudium Magnum Foundation – Maria and João Cortez de Lobão Collection is thus an important piece to help us understand Josefa de Óbidos’ stylistic development and early growth.