The Monastery of San Pedro (Our Lady of the Snows)
1879
Frederic Edwin Church
Frederic Edwin Church (American, 1826–1900)
American Painting and Sculpture
The Monastery of San Pedro (Our Lady of the Snows), 1879. Frederic Edwin Church (American, 1826–1900). Oil on canvas; unframed: 118.8 x 183.2 cm (46 3/4 x 72 1/8 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Hinman B. Hurlbut Collection 1915.684 Although the location that inspired the painting has been subject to scholarly debate, many believe it derives from Church’s travels through the Ecuadorean Andes nearly a quarter century earlier. The composition reads as an allegory of spiritual salvation: perched atop a dramatic cliff, a brilliantly backlit monastery overlooks a shadowed foreground where a solitary figure navigates a rugged path.
- Maker/Artist
- Church, Frederic Edwin
- Classification
- Painting
- Formatted Medium
- oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- Unframed: 118.8 x 183.2 cm (46 3/4 x 72 1/8 in.)
- Inscribed
- Inscription: signed lower left: F. E. Church / 79
- Departments
- American Painting and Sculpture
- Accession Number
- 1915.684
- Credit Line
- Hinman B. Hurlbut Collection
- Exhibitions
- Inaugural Exhibition, Frederic Edwin Church, American Paintings 1825-1915, American Paintings 1825 - 1915 from the Cleveland Museum of Art, American Paintings 1825-1915, Object Lessons: Cleveland Creates an Art Museum, New York, Century Association (June 7, 1879) (as The Monastery of San Pedro). (Review in Boston Evening Transcript titles the painting "Our Lady of the Snows.")<br>Washington, D.C., Smithsonian Institution, Frederic Edwin Church (February 2-March 13, 1966); traveled to Albany, NY, Institute of History and Art (March 30-April 30, 1966); traveled to New York, Knoedler Galleries (June 1-June 30, 1966), cat. No. 140 and p. 80.<br>Coshocton, OH, Johnson-Humrickhouse Museum, American Paintings 1825-1915 (July 7-November 1, 1979), cat. fig. 7.<br>Cleveland, The Cleveland Museum of Art, Inaugural Exhibition (June 6-September 20, 1916), cat. p. 125, illus. p. 292.<br>Lakewood, OH, The Kenneth C. Beck Center, American Paintings 1825-1915, from the Cleveland Museum of Art (September 17-October 13, 1980), same as Coshocton, OH exhibition.<br>Cleveland, The Cleveland Museum of Art, Object Lessons: Cleveland Creates an Art Museum (June 6-September 8, 1991), illus. in cat. p.15.
- Rights Statement
- CC0
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