Rising from the sun-bleached atrium stones of Oaxaca's historic center, the ornate Churrigueresque façade of the Templo de la Soledad commands the frame in this striking real-photo postcard dated 1932 by photographer Bellon. Every tier of the baroque retablo-façade — saints in niches, twisted estípite columns, floral relief carvings in warm green cantera stone — is rendered with crystalline photographic clarity. The Basílica de Nuestra Señora de la Soledad, Oaxaca's most beloved Marian shrine, was completed in 1690 and has served as the spiritual heart of the city ever since. Bellon, a photographer working in Oaxaca in the early twentieth century, produced a numbered RPPC series (this is no. 32) that constitutes some of the finest documentary photography of the city's colonial monuments from the pre-tourism era. The cobblestone atrium plaza in the foreground is entirely empty — a rare and evocative silence.