Heart of the Andes

Frederic Edwin Church unveiled this massive landscape in April 1859, and it caused a sensation. Measuring nearly ten feet wide, it synthesizes the full climatic range of the South American Andes, from tropical valleys to snow-capped peaks, inspired by Church's two expeditions to Ecuador in 1853 and 1857.

Church displayed the painting in a massive frame resembling a window, lit by concealed gas jets in a darkened room. He advised viewers to bring opera glasses to study the botanical detail. Twelve thousand people paid twenty-five cents each to see it monthly. Later exhibitions in London, Boston, Philadelphia, and other cities drew similar crowds.

Church eventually sold the work to William Blodgett for $10,000, then the highest price paid for a work by a living American artist. The painting passed through several owners before Margaret Dows bequeathed it to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1909. Church had helped found the museum in 1870, making this homecoming fitting. In 1993, the Met recreated the original theatrical exhibition conditions.