The saint, the Spanish founder of the Discalced Carmelite nuns and a Doctor of the Church in her own right, is depicted as seated on clouds as on a bed. She is caught during an ecstasy that she described in her mystical autobiography, when she experienced an angel piercing her heart with a dart of divine love. Here she is shown as if on the point of getting out of bed, caught in her rumpled coverlet and with one bare foot on the way to the floor.