Purese Volcano seen from Popayan, Colombia

Frederic Edwin Church's sketch documents his South American expedition, capturing the volcanic peaks near Popayan in rapid pen strokes. Church, a leading figure in the Hudson River School, traveled throughout Colombia and Ecuador between 1853 and 1857, sketching landscapes that would inform his monumental studio paintings. This fieldwork drawing demonstrates the artist's method: quick observational studies made on site, later transformed into large-scale compositions. The notations and multiple viewpoints suggest Church analyzing the terrain from different vantage points, studying how light and atmosphere rendered these equatorial mountains. Such expeditionary sketches became foundational to American landscape painting's expansion beyond domestic scenery.