 In 1853 and 1857, Church traveled in Ecuador and Colombia, financed by businessman Cyrus West Field, who wished to use Church's paintings to lure investors to his South American ventures.Church was inspired by the Prussian naturalist and explorer Alexander von Humboldt, and his 1845 treatise "Kosmos".Humboldt was among the last of the great scientific generalists, and his fame became similar to that of Albert Einstein a century later.