CC0 · no rights reserved
The Monastery of San Pedro (Our Lady of the Snows)
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art. Free to download, adapt and use — no permission needed.
About this work
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.
Cleveland Museum of Art’s own descriptionCredit lineThe 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
