Crucifixion

María Josefa Sánchez, a rare woman artist active in the Iberian peninsula – probably in Castile – in the 17th century, seems to have specialized in small-scale devotional crucifixes. These paintings would have been hung on individuals’ walls for private devotion, including within convents. At the time, women like Sánchez could typically only access artistic training within convents or in their male relatives’ workshops. Art historians aren’t sure if Sánchez was a nun or a lay person. The cross shows a pained, crucified Christ with a trompe l'oeil effect of nails and blood dripping from his hands and feet. Below him, the Virgin Mary prays, silhouetted by the sun.

This fine example of a small cross made for individual worship is also exceptional because it is signed by a woman artist, María Josefa Sánchez. Sánchez was active from 1639 to 1649, probably in Castile, but little else is known about her. Women rarely worked as professional artists in 17th-century Spain; those few who did usually trained in the workshops of their fathers. Some women artists of the period, Sánchez included, may have been nuns who produced devotional works for monastic communities. Here the body of Jesus is gracefully posed in contrast to his agonized expression, with carefully depicted drops of blood spilling from his hands and feet. The glowing orbs near his hands represent the sun and the moon, ...