Study of Donkeys at Rest, Ecuador

Frederic Edwin Church's pen sketch captures two pack animals resting among sparse vegetation during his travels in South America. The rapid, economical linework reveals Church's practice of sketching from nature—a method central to nineteenth-century landscape painting. These field studies served as compositional and observational notes for the monumental canvases that made Church a leading figure of the Hudson River School. The sketch demonstrates how working artists of the era built visual knowledge through direct study, translating immediate observation into finished works that shaped American landscape tradition.