Crucifixion

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.