Convent Museum of Santa Teresa
Carmelite convent of 1685 in Potosí, shown by guided tour with its colonial art collection.
The monastery of Discalced Carmelite nuns under the patronage of Saint Joseph was founded in Potosí in 1685, when the silver city was among the largest in the Spanish world. Daughters of wealthy mining families entered at fifteen, bringing a substantial dowry, and lived thereafter in strict enclosure behind a turning box and grilles. The buildings grew round two cloisters and a church whose portal, in the mestizo baroque manner of the Andes, was completed in the eighteenth century.
Part of the convent opened as a museum in 1976 while the community continues in the remaining wing. The guided route passes the confessional grilles, the refectory, the kitchens and the cells, and shows the instruments of penance used by the nuns. The collection of colonial art is among the richest in Bolivia, with paintings by Melchor Pérez de Holguín and Gaspar Miguel de Berrío, polychrome sculpture from the school of Seville, silverwork, embroidery and furniture inlaid with mother of pearl.
Highlights
- Carmelite enclosure founded in 1685 and still partly in use
- Paintings by Melchor Pérez de Holguín and Gaspar Miguel de Berrío
- Cloisters, cells, refectory and the nuns' turning box
- Colonial silverwork, embroidery and polychrome sculpture
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