Maria Eufrasia della Croce

Maria Eufrasia della Croce (1597–1676) was a Carmelite nun and artist. She was born as Flavia Benedetti in Rome; she entered Carmel in 1628 and painted many works for her Roman convent of S. Giuseppe a Capo le Case of the Discalced Carmelites.[1] Her father was a Roman patrician and she had three brothers, one a Capuchin friar, and one, the abbott Elpidio, secretary to Cardinal Mazarin, who also collected art and was an amateur architect.[1][2]

Maria entered the convent on 3 May 1627 and became a nun a year later.[1] She may have received some artistic training as a child; her work bears some similarity to the colouring of the Bolognese group of artists and she had links with the miniaturist Anna Angelica Allegrini and the architect Plautilla Bricci.[2] She may have helped to train Plautilla, who stayed with her for a sustained period; her brother Elpidio went on to commission Plautilla to design his villa.[3][4]

At some point Maria became the Prioress of the convent.[1] She painted an altarpiece of the Nativity with Plautilla's help for the Church of S. Giuseppe, now destroyed.[4] She is also recorded as having painted two other altarpieces in the Church, a Virgin and Child with Saint Catherine and a small Virgin and Child with John the Baptist and Saint Andrew.[5] She also painted several frescoes in the cloistered part of the convent.[2] She painted a framed Virgin Mary of the Rosary owned by her brother Elpidio.[1]

Maria's paintings were mentioned in the guidebook written by Filippo Titi.[1][6] Inside the convent, surviving mural paintings include God the Father, an Annunciation, the repentant Mary Magdalene and Christ with the woman from Samaria around the communion window; Mary Magdalene, the Virgin Mary and Saint John in an illusionistic architectural frame designed to surround a sculpted Crucifix; and two Carmelite saints flanking a cross with symbols of Christ's Resurrection and the nourishing blood of Christ bathing two nude figures, which is similar to contemporary devotional prints.[1][2] Destroyed mural paintings include a Last Supper, the ecstasy of Saint Teresa; Christ and the woman from Samaria and a Noli me Tangere.[1] There is also a surviving canvas depicting Saint Teresa protecting Carmelite nuns attributed to Maria, also similar to print imagery.[1] For her mural paintings, Maria used oil on plaster, an easier technique than true fresco.[1] The stories of the repentant Mary Magdalene and the woman from Samaria were significant to Saint Teresa, as was the image of Christ's nourishing blood.[1]