The first English-language monograph to explore the remarkable life and diverse oeuvre of one of the most famous artists of the Portuguese Baroque era.

Josefa de Ayala, known as Josefa de Óbidos (ca. 1630–1684), was among the most celebrated artists of the Portuguese Baroque. She learned still-life painting from her father in her youth and developed into a versatile artist whose paintings feature a range of sacred and secular subjects. Despite never marrying, Óbidos enjoyed immense creative and personal independence thanks to her legal status as a donzela emancipada (emancipated maiden). Over the course of her exceptional career, she produced engravings and painted church altarpieces, defying traditional gender conventions with the scope and breadth of her work.

Author Carmen Ripollés brings Óbidos’s diverse accomplishments to life in this riveting introduction to the English-speaking world. While previous studies have treated Óbidos as an isolated figure, Ripollés examines the artist’s place within a broader context, positioning her alongside other early modern female practitioners. Josefa de Óbidos tells the remarkable story of a woman who rose to wealth as a landowner and left an indelible mark on the visual culture of the Portuguese empire.