Josefa de Óbidos
Encyclopedia
Portugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
painter
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
from the seventeenth century. Her birth name was Josefa de Ayala Figueira, but she signed her work as, "Josefa em Óbidos" or, "Josefa de Ayalla". She is one of the relatively few female European painters known to have been active in the Baroque
Baroque
The Baroque is a period and the style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, literature, dance, and music...
era. All of her work was executed in Portugal, her father's native country, where she lived from the age of four.
Life and work
Josefa de Óbidos was born in SevilleSeville
Seville is the artistic, historic, cultural, and financial capital of southern Spain. It is the capital of the autonomous community of Andalusia and of the province of Seville. It is situated on the plain of the River Guadalquivir, with an average elevation of above sea level...
, Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
. Her father, Baltazar Gomes Figueira, was a Portuguese painter from the village of Óbidos. He went to Seville in the 1620s to improve his painting technique and, while there, married Catarina de Ayala y Cabrera, a native Andalusia
Andalusia
Andalusia is the most populous and the second largest in area of the autonomous communities of Spain. The Andalusian autonomous community is officially recognised as a nationality of Spain. The territory is divided into eight provinces: Huelva, Seville, Cádiz, Córdoba, Málaga, Jaén, Granada and...
n, who would become the mother of Josefa. The family returned to Portugal in 1634. They first settled in Peniche, where Baltazar continued his work as a painter.
It is known that by 1644, at the age of fourteen, Josefa, was in Coimbra
Coimbra
Coimbra is a city in the municipality of Coimbra in Portugal. Although it served as the nation's capital during the High Middle Ages, it is better-known for its university, the University of Coimbra, which is one of the oldest in Europe and the oldest academic institution in the...
in the Convent of The Grace (Convento da Graça), where her father painted the main altarpiece of the church.
Josefa's first known works are engraving
Engraving
Engraving is the practice of incising a design on to a hard, usually flat surface, by cutting grooves into it. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or glass are engraved, or may provide an intaglio printing plate, of copper or another metal, for printing...
s, executed in 1646. They demonstrate that she had achieved a high degree of skill by the age of sixteen. Sometime before 1653, she and her family left Coimbra and settled in Óbidos.
While in Óbidos, she drew an allegory
Allegory
Allegory is a demonstrative form of representation explaining meaning other than the words that are spoken. Allegory communicates its message by means of symbolic figures, actions or symbolic representation...
of Wisdom
Wisdom
Wisdom is a deep understanding and realization of people, things, events or situations, resulting in the ability to apply perceptions, judgements and actions in keeping with this understanding. It often requires control of one's emotional reactions so that universal principles, reason and...
for the Book of Rules of the University of Coimbra, which was being decorated by her father. Highly esteemed as a painter by that time, her father Baltazar is considered to be the main influence upon her. He possessed a great number of engravings among his collection that made Josefa familiar with the art of her time.
Portrait painting
Portrait painting is a genre in painting, where the intent is to depict the visual appearance of the subject. Beside human beings, animals, pets and even inanimate objects can be chosen as the subject for a portrait...
and still-life for private customers. Among her chief religious works are the five panels for the Saint Catherine altarpiece of the Church of the Holy Mary (Santa Maria) in Óbidos, in 1661. During 1672-1673 she painted the altarpiece of Saint Theresa of Ávila for the Carmelite Convent of Cascais
Cascais
Cascais is a coastal town in Cascais Municipality in Portugal, 30 kilometres west of Lisbon, with about 35,000 residents. It is a cosmopolitan suburb of the Portuguese capital and one of the richest municipalities in Portugal. The former fishing village gained fame as a resort for Portugal's royal...
. In 1679 she completed an altarpiece for the Church of the Mercy of Peniche. Her best known portrait is that of Faustino das Neves, dated c.1670, which is in the Municipal Museum of Óbidos.
Many of her still-life paintings, considered her specialty, are among other works by her that are now in the National Museum of Ancient Art
National Museum of Ancient Art
The Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga , located in Lisbon, is an art museum in Portugal.The museum is known as MNAA , and is popularly known as the Museu das Janelas Verdes due to the color of its windows...
in (Lisbon
Lisbon
Lisbon is the capital city and largest city of Portugal with a population of 545,245 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Lisbon extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of 3 million on an area of , making it the 9th most populous urban...
). Her work appears in several other museums and as well as in private collections.
Josefa de Óbidos died in Óbidos and was buried in the Church of Saint Peter of Óbidos. She is considered to be one of the most accomplished painters of seventeenth century Portugal and is especially significant because of the recognition she gained among the Baroque painters, an art period which was dominated by male painters.