Virgin of El Panecillo

With a total height of 135 feet (41 meters) including the base, it is the highest statue in Ecuador and one of the highest in South America (taller than the Christ the Redeemer statue in the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro).

[1] In the 1950s, local authorities and religious leaders stood looking at El Panecillo, a loaf-shaped, 656-foot-high (200 meters) hill in central Quito.

They agreed that the hilltop, visible throughout the city, was the perfect place to erect a statue.

After years of debate, they decided that the statue would be a large replica of the Virgin of Quito, a 48-inch-tall wooden sculpture created by Bernardo de Legarda in 1734.

The statue was then disassembled, shipped to Ecuador, and assembled again on top of the base.

Virgin of El Panecillo
El Panecillo hill in the 19th century. Quito (c. 1889), attributed to Rafael Salas. National Museum of Ecuador.
House altar with the Virgen de Quito (18th century) by Bernardo de Legarda. Wood, polychromy. Ethnological Museum , Berlin.