The Aluminium Virgin of El Panecillo

El Panecillo, the little bread loaf, is the round hill that rises south of Quito's old town. From the top of Calle Venezuela, below the Basílica del Voto Nacional, you can look straight down the street and see her at its far end: a winged Virgin standing on the summit. The old town's checkerboard of streets is laid square to the compass across a mountainside, so the hill closes the view down a street that falls the whole way.

A carving, scaled up

She is a copy. The original is the Virgin of Quito, a wooden sculpture about thirty centimetres high that the Quito sculptor and gilder Bernardo de Legarda made in 1734, venerated at the high altar of the church of San Francisco in the old town. Legarda's Virgin has wings, and the statue on the hill repeats them.

The copy is the work of Agustín de la Herrán Matorras. It is made of 7,400 numbered pieces of an aluminium and magnesium alloy, and it stands about thirty metres tall, on a base. Figures of 41 metres that turn up in guides count the base as well; the claim that she is taller than Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro does not hold. El Comercio dates the inauguration to 28 March 1975, with the wings fitted that September; other sources say 1976, so the mid-1970s is the safe date.

Where to see her

You do not have to climb the hill to see her well. The Old Town: The Way the Water Runs walk shows her twice. At the first stop, by the Basilica, she stands at the far end of Calle Venezuela. At the ninth, the Bulevar 24 de Mayo, she is large and clear across the old ravine the city filled in and opened as an avenue in 1922: the best view on the walk. Between the two, the original carving sits in San Francisco, the seventh stop.

Going up

The hill is not a stop on the walk. Most visitors go up by taxi from the old town rather than on foot. In the 2025 Christmas season the statue charged USD 1, open Monday to Wednesday from 09:00 to 17:00 and Thursday to Sunday from 09:00 to 21:00; check before you go, because those were seasonal hours. From the top, the old town lies below you to the north, the grid you walked spread out on the slope.

Seen from below, the point of her is simple. A small carving made for one altar in 1734 became, two and a half centuries later, the figure the whole old town looks at down its own streets.