Ruins of the Church of San Domingo, Panama

Eadweard J. Muybridge

1875

A detailed albumen silver print photograph by Eadweard Muybridge that documents the ruined brick façade and collapsed roof of the Church of San Domingo in Panama, aiming to record the material traces and historical presence of colonial architecture.

Seen from a low street-level angle, the image strikes with the church’s monumental, crumbling brick front, empty window and door openings, and scattered masonry in the foreground, rendered in crisp tonal detail that makes the ruin feel both sculptural and quietly desolate.

Part of 19th-century travel and documentary photography, this work helped establish the camera as a precise tool for architectural recording and preservation, shaping how historians and artists perceived and valued ruins and built heritage.

Palette

Exhibitions

Sixty Photographs: A Survey of Camera Esthetics

1940

Religious Folk Art of the Southwest

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Diogenes with a Camera III

1956

Photographs Before Surrealism

1968