Active in: Portugal
Alternate names: Josefa de Ayala Figueira; Josefa de Ayala; Josefa em Óbidos.

Biography

Josefa de Ayala, commonly known as Josefa de Óbidos, was born in Seville, Spain around 1630. Her father, Baltazar Gomes Figueira (1604–74) was a painter from the Portuguese town of Óbidos. Her mother, Catarina de Ayala y Cabrera, was from the region of Andalusia. Her parents met in Seville where Figueira was living in order to complete his artistic training. de Óbidos’ godfather was the distinguished Spanish painter Francisco de Herrera the Elder (1576-1656), who had briefly trained with Diego Velázquez (1599–1660). 

de Óbidos’ parents relocated to Óbidos around 1634. While her parents were in Portugal, de Óbidos stayed in Spain under the tutelage of her grandfather João Ortiz de Ayala, an amateur painter. By the mid-1640s, Figueira and his family were living in and around the Portuguese university town of Coimbra. During this period, de Óbidos stayed as a boarder in the Augustinian convent of Santa Ana in Coimbra while her father accepted commissions from nearby ecclesiastical institutions. de Óbidos began her apprenticeship under her father at this time, likely assisting his work on the altarpiece for the church of Nossa Senhora da Graça in Coimbra. Her first known autograph work–an engraving of St. Catherine signed “Jozepha de Ayalla. Coimbra 1646”–is thought by some to be a self-portrait. The following year she completed her first signed oil painting, a representation of the mystical marriage of St. Catherine. The vast majority of her œuvre is oil on canvas and copper; some 150 paintings have been attributed to her. 

de Óbidos and her family left Coimbra in 1653 for Óbidos. The artist spent the rest of her life in this town, and her civic pride became part of her artistic identity; she signed her paintings as “Josepha Ayalla, Óbidos,” “Josepha em Óbidos,” or simply “Óbidos.” There is scant evidence that she ever left the town again, though some have hypothesized that she may have visited Seville in the early 1670s. In 1659, she obtained her family’s permission to live independently as a “donzela emancipada,” or emancipated, unmarried woman. For the remainder of her life, de Óbidos alternated between the religious works for churches and convents and secular paintings for private patrons. Two important commissions of the former category were for the retablo for Santa Maria de Óbidos (ca. 1661) and seven canvases for the Carmelite convent of Nossa Senhora da Assunção in the coastal Portuguese town of Cascais (ca. 1673). 

de Óbidos is considered one of the greatest Portuguese artists of the seventeenth century and she was a celebrated artist in her own time and place. In his 1696 treatise on painting, Félix da Costa Meesen) described her as an artist “acclaimed far and wide.” An eighteenth-century chronicle states that a great number of women traveled to Óbidos to watch her paint and to have their own portraits painted.  In some cases, as with Queen Maria Francisca and her daughter Isabel, these visitors were members of the Portuguese nobility. de Óbidos died on July 22, 1684 and was buried at the Igreja de São Pedro.

Selected Works