Museo Larco

Why start with this museum

The Museo Larco presents the history of Peru before the arrival of the Spanish through objects: ceramics, textiles, metalwork, carved stone. For a traveller who will then visit Trujillo, Chiclayo, the south coast or Cusco, it is the best way to put names, periods and styles to what they will see at the sites, where the objects often left the tombs long ago.

The museum was founded on 28 July 1926 by Rafael Larco Hoyle, then aged 25, in tribute to his father, Rafael Larco Herrera. The first piece, given by his father in 1923, was a Mochica portrait vessel. The collection was moved to Lima in the 1950s, into a mansion dating from 1700 that Larco Hoyle altered with features salvaged from an old house in Trujillo. Today it holds some 50,000 archaeological pieces, all of which can be consulted online since 2007.

How to read the permanent exhibition

The collection covers several millennia and an immense territory. Two landmarks help you avoid mixing everything up:

• The north coast is the great strength of the collection, inherited from Larco Hoyle’s research in the Trujillo region: Cupisnique, Salinar, Virú and above all Mochica (also called Moche), then Chimú. These are the cultures you will find again at the Huacas del Sol y de la Luna, Chan Chan and El Brujo.
• The other regions are represented by smaller groups: textiles from the south coast (Paracas), objects from the highlands and from the Inca period.

The cultures do not follow one another like the chapters of a textbook: some coexisted in neighbouring valleys, others occupied the same territory centuries apart. On its website, the museum offers an introductory video and a plan of the exhibition: watching them before the visit stops you mixing everything up in front of the display cases.

Four objects to look for

These pieces are part of the permanent exhibition according to the museum’s online catalogue; their inventory number lets you find them and read their full record.

The visitable storerooms

The museum lets the public into its storerooms, which is still rare: some 30,000 ceramics are stored and classified there on glass-fronted shelves. The visit gives an idea of the scale of the ancient potters’ output and of how archaeologists classify by shapes and themes. You go through quickly, but you come out with a different sense of scale.

The erotic gallery

A separate gallery presents ceramics with sexual depictions. The museum interprets them as an expression of desire and of the union of opposing and complementary forces that ensure the regeneration of life, and not as scandalous images. The gallery is set apart: with children, you can simply skip it.

Three ways to do the visit

In one hour. The four objects in the table above and the rooms where they are, then a quick walk through the storerooms.

In two to three hours. The whole permanent exhibition, stopping at the north coast rooms, then the storerooms and a break in the gardens. The online catalogue lets you prepare a list of pieces to see the day before.

With the family. The animals depicted on the ceramics (felines, birds, snakes, crabs) offer a simple observation game: “find three sea creatures”. Children aged 3 to 8 pay a token price, or nothing depending on where you buy.

Linking the visit to the rest of the trip

Practical information

• Opening: every day, public holidays included, from 9:00 to 19:00.
• Admission: S/ 50 at the ticket office for general admission, S/ 45 online according to the visit page. Prices and opening hours change from time to time.
• Getting there: the museum is about 10 km by road from Kennedy Park, in Miraflores. No rapid transit links the two neighbourhoods: a taxi booked by app is still the simplest option. Set off in the morning, before the afternoon traffic.
• On site: gardens; the museum publishes pages on its services, accessibility, photography and welcoming visitors with special needs.
• Afterwards: Plaza Bolívar and the Antigua Taberna Queirolo are in the same neighbourhood; see Pueblo Libre.

Our suggestion

Come in the morning, look at the chronology first, then look for the four objects described on this page before going down to the storerooms. Allow an hour and a half, two with a break in the gardens.

What to ask before you go

• The price and opening hours on the day: the museum changes them from time to time.
• Private guided tours, separate from the ticket, if you want one.

Have the opening hours, a dish or a price changed? Let us know and we will correct this page.