Museo Larco, Lima Peru
The Larco Museum (Museo Arqueológico Rafael Larco Herrera) is a privately owned museum of pre-Columbian art, located in the Pueblo Libre District of Lima, Peru. The museum is housed in an 18th-century vice-royal building built over a 7th-century pre-Columbian pyramid. It showcases chronological galleries that provide a thorough overview of 4,000 years of Peruvian pre-Columbian history. It is well known for its gallery of pre-Columbian erotic pottery. Rafael Larco Hoyle (May 18, 1901 in Chicama Valley, Peru – 1966), raised at Chiclin, his family's estate, was sent to school in Maryland, USA, at the age of twelve. He later entered Cornell University to study agricultural engineering and by 1923 returned to Peru to work on the family's sugar cane plantation. Peruvian archaeology was in its infancy and Larco Hoyle realized many typologies were yet to be recognized. He set out to correct that and approached archaeological research academically. During the 1930s, he discovered many distinct Peruvian cultures such as Viru, Salinar, Cupisnique, and Lambayeque. In Lima, Larco purchased the Luna Cartland family house, built in 1700, to house his museum. The grounds of the museum are surrounded by beautiful gardens that won the prize for best gardens in Peru in January 2009.