The Nun Jerónima de la Fuente

Velázquez painted The Nun Jerónima de la Fuente around 1620, depicting the remarkable Franciscan nun who at sixty-six years old was embarking on a mission to the Philippines to establish a convent there. The portrait — one of the few works Velázquez signed and dated — shows the elderly nun in full Franciscan habit, her gaze fierce and uncompromising, holding a crucifix and a cartouche with an inscription declaring her mission. It is among the most powerful character studies of his early career: the face carved by age and will into something approaching the monumental, the religious context giving the direct confrontational gaze a spiritual authority that makes this one of the most striking portraits of female determination in Spanish art.

The stark composition isolates the nun's powerful figure against a plain background, her crucifix held like a weapon, with Velázquez's early precise technique emphasizing the deep folds of her black habit.