Mère Marie-Héloïse des Dix Vertus, Mother Superior of a convent in Boulogne-sur-Mer

This nun's order goes back to Jeanne de France, a daughter of King Louis XI, who founded it at the start of the 1500s after her marriage to Louis XII was annulled. Its rule is built on ten virtues of the Virgin Mary, which is where the sitter's religious name comes from, and its superior is called the ancelle, the handmaid, after Mary's words at the Annunciation. Born Héloïse Geneviève Gruselle, she headed the convent of the Annonciade at Boulogne-sur-Mer. Corot painted her in 1852 on a small wooden panel, 36 centimetres high. She stands in a black mantle over the red scapular of her order, with a white collar, a rosary hanging from her hands and a medal on a blue ribbon at her chest. In 1904 French laws against religious congregations forced the Boulogne community to move to England.