Saint Rose of Lima

Murillo painted this in Seville around 1670, and the date matters. Rose of Lima had just become the first saint of the Americas. Born in Peru, a Dominican laywoman who died in 1617, she was canonized in Rome in 1671. Seville was the port through which all of Spain's trade with the New World passed, so an American saint arrived there with real weight. The scene is a private vision from her life. She kneels in the black-and-white Dominican habit, a rosary beside her, while the Christ Child, seated on her sewing basket, leans across to hand her a rose. There may be a close family reason the picture feels so tender. In 1671 Murillo's own daughter entered a convent in Seville and took her vows under a new name, Sister Francisca Maria de Santa Rosa, after this very saint.