St. Rose of Lima by Night (M 024) Ceramic Tile

In this lovely depiction from a devotional print, St. Rose of Lima (1586-1617) stands in a tropical Peruvian landscape at nightfall. Little yellow stars twinkle in the darkening blue-green sky behind her. She is flanked on the left by a brown clapboard church and on the right by a swaying palm tree. Clad in the cream-coloured Dominican habit befitting her membership in the Third Order, she wears a crown of thorns in memory of Christ’s passion atop her white veil. She holds an armful of pink roses and a wooden cross. + St. Rose was the first person born in the Americas to be declared a saint and remains a popular one. She is the primary patron of Peru and of the indigenous peoples of Latin America, co-patron of the Philippines with St. Pudentiana, patron the Americas in general, and patron of Santa Rosa, California, and its Diocese. Additionally, she is the patron saint of embroiderers, gardeners, and florists. Quite naturally, roses of all varieties have become her attribute. In art, she is depicted crowned with roses, holding roses (as here), or in a setting with potted roses or flowering rose bushes. + Feast: August 23 + Image Credit (M 024): Antique image of St. Rose of Lima from a devotional chromolithograph printed in Germany, original publisher unknown, late 19th-early 20th century, from the designer’s private collection of religious ephemera.