Images of the sorrowing Virgin Mary were originally derived from lamentation or pietà scenes that showed Mary weeping over the dead body of her son. By the 16th and 17th centuries, Mary was depicted alone as a devotional image, with images of the dead or suffering Christ implied, or in this case, used as a miniature painting on the predella, or pedestal, upon which she stands. The Rodríguez family operated one of the largest painting studios in Mexico. It is this family studio, according to art historians, that had the largest influence in moving Mexican art from seventeenth century styles to eighteenth. Nicolás was son of the painter Antonio Juárez and the grandson of José Juárez. His younger brother, Juan Rodriguez Juárez, was also a painter.

St. Anthony of Padua (1195-1231) was a Portuguese Franciscan canonized just a year after his death. He was known for his sermons against social injustice and heresy; however, his bold character and blistering tongue are never represented in art. Instead he appears as a sweet-faced and compassionate individual, a standard depiction since the Renaissance. The spray of lilies in this context symbolizes the virtue of chastity. St Anthony of Padua is one of many saints who are depicted with this attribute. During the Counter Reformation the Catholic Church believed that art should convey emotion and religious sentiment. It was thought that if religious art could evoke an emotional response in the viewer that the church would attract new worshipers. So St. Anthony of Padua was depicted with a tilted head, soft gaze, and gentle gesture of the hand. The intimate space which he shares with the Christ Child further emphasizes these ideas.

The Spanish mystic, St. Teresa of Ávila (1515-1582), who founded a religious order and who was the first woman to be named Doctor of the Church, was a popular subject in seventeenth-century art. Against her father's wishes, Teresa secretly entered the Carmelite convent in Ávila, Spain as a young woman. In 1652, she succeeded in founding the Convent of St. Joseph in Ávila, the first community of reformed, or Discalced Carmelite nuns (referring to their practice of going barefoot or wearing sandals.) This painting is consistent with the Counter Reformation style in Mexico, in which ecstatic holy figures were portrayed in an intimate, direct way. Holding a bishop's staff in one hand and with her other hand raised as if witnessing a miracle, she gazes lovingly at the prominent flowering tree. The tilt of her head and her pleasant expression make her appear approachable. The meaning of the tree, although assumed to be an allegory for some aspect of her life, or a passage from her writings, has yet to be determined. St. Teresa was an influential author. Among her writings are a spiritual autobiography, The Way to Perfection, advice to nuns, The Interior Castle, a description of the contemplative life, and The Foundations, an account of the origins of the Discalced Carmelites.

Ildefonso was born in 606, probably in Visigoth Spain. He became a monk and a follower of Saint Isidore of Seville, and also a noted theologian, writing especially in defense of devotion to the Virgin Mary. Because he became a hero to later theologians who established the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception in the Middle Ages and into the Renaissance, a belief arose after his death that the Virgin herself came to dress Ildefonso in a golden chasuble (a liturgical garment worn to say Mass) woven in Heaven. This is what is depicted in the painting.