Set within an expansive wooded landscape, Saint Sophronia inscribes her name on a tree while further episodes from her legend unfold around her. Her body appears in the foreground, attended by birds carrying branches, and figures gather in the distance. The uncommon subject belongs to a devotional tradition centred on female ascetics, solitude and penitence.

The composition follows an engraving published by Jean Leclerc IV, related to the series of female hermits designed by Maerten de Vos and engraved by Adriaen Collaert. Its adaptation in Peru illustrates the circulation of European prints and their transformation by Andean painters. The landscape and the saint’s brilliant yellow mantle are central to the work’s distinctive character.

Joakim Borda-Pedreira’s research proposes a connection with the circle of Diego Quispe Tito through comparisons with paintings of hermits and ascetics associated with the Recoleta in Cusco. The suggestion that this canvas once belonged to the same series remains a hypothesis, based on its style, dimensions and subject. The painting offers a rare example of an iconography little represented on either side of the Atlantic.