Museo Larco
Saturday, January 13
Many tourists who visit Peru fly directly from Lima to Cusco, the former Inca capital. Unfortunately, many people skip the city of Lima, even though there are great pre-Columbian treasures to see here too. An important museum for learning about them is the “Museo Arqueológico Rafael Larco Herrera” or shorter “Museo Larco”.
The Larco Museum is located in a rather quiet residential area about 15 minutes from the historic center of the city. The museum mainly exhibits the collection of Peruvian archaeologist Rafael Larco Herrera (1872-1956) and his son Rafael Larco Hoyle, who was also an archaeologist. The collection consists of around 45,000 exhibits of pre-Columbian art. There are sculptures, textiles, ceramics and jewelry from various pre-Columbian Peruvian civilizations (e.g. Moche, Cupisnique, Lambayeque, Virú, Chimú and Inca). The museum opened in Lima in 1962 and is now located in the premises of a large property consisting of several single-story rooms. In a total of 13 rooms, visitors can marvel at the many exhibits made from a wide variety of materials. The museum’s inner courtyard is a beautiful garden and after enjoying the exhibition, we took a stroll around the property. The “Museo Larco” is an important museum in Lima due to the wonderful space and architecture and of course due to the thousands of stunning exhibits. In my opinion no tourist should skip this museum when in Lima!
Since the museum is privately owned and not state-funded, admission to the museum is quite expensive. Unfortunately, there is no discounted entrance fee for Peruvian citizens either, so most of our Peruvian friends have never been able to visit the museum. We found the museum very worthwhile and would therefore like the Museo Larco to be more accessible to the Peruvian people in the future.
