Visitors to the National Shrine of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton may be surprised to discover an oil painting of Our Lady of Guadalupe on display in the shrine’s new museum. This image was given to Mother Seton in the year 1811 by her friend Mathias O’Conway, who was also the father of the first woman to join her new order, the Sisters of Charity. The painting of Our Lady hung for many years over the altar of the chapel in St. Joseph’s House, the order’s first house of community in Emmitsburg, Maryland.
Ongoing research suggests that the oil painting may have been the first image of Our Lady of Guadalupe in the U.S., at least as it then existed.