The Museo de Arte Religioso occupies the old Convent of the Sisters of the Conception, a colonial building that stands out sharply among Riobamba's largely 19th- and 20th-century architecture. The collection covers three centuries of religious art: paintings in the Quito School style, gilded baroque sculptures, silverwork, jewellery, and processional objects that were once carried through the streets of the now-vanished original city.
The Quito School paintings are the highlight — a distinctive tradition that blended indigenous craftsmanship with European religious iconography, producing images whose saints and angels often have Andean faces and whose backgrounds occasionally include volcanoes. The museum is small enough to see in an hour and is one of the best colonial art collections in the central Sierra.