Description
This rare 19th century painting features ‘Santa Rosa de Lima’ painted on tin. Rose of Lima (30 April 1586 – 24 August 1617) was a member of the Third Order of Saint Dominic in Lima, Peru, who became known for both her life of severe asceticism and her care of the needy of the city through her own private efforts. Her image is featured on the highest denomination banknote of Peru.
As a young woman, Rosa would wore a habit, professed virginity, poverty and abstemiousness, but lived at home with her family. She neatly combined the two cardinal roles for women of that time: nun and family member.
The Catholic Church says that many miracles followed her death: there were stories that she had cured a leper, and that, at the time of her death, the city of Lima smelled like roses; roses also started falling from the sky. Many places in the New World are named Santa Rosa after her.
