There are public and private museums in the city of Cusco, with great works of art, in archaeological and historical areas. The best museums in Cusco house the richest collections of ancient Peru to expressions of modern art. You can admire pre-Columbian masterpieces, gold jewelry, textiles, ceramics and much more. [Icon name = “quote-right” class = “” unprefixed_class = “”]

The Best Museums in the city of Cusco

1. Qorikancha site museum

In the outer courtyard of the Qorikancha there is a site museum where the functions of this Inca temple are explained. Exhibits fragments and ceramics of the Inca period as well as samples of metallurgy, textile, painting, sculpture, music instruments, sculpture, etc.

2. Museum of pre-Columbian art

The pre-Columbian art museum was an Inca ceremonial court around 1450 AD in 1580 it became the mansion of the conqueror Alonso Díaz and in 1850 the count of Cabrera. It was restored to be the pre-Columbian art museum since June 2003. This extraordinary historical monument of Cusco has the only museum in Peru dedicated to recovering the arts of the ancient Peruvian cultures. The collection of 450 masterpieces from 1250 BC to 1532 AD were selected from 45,000 objects located in the Larco museum’s warehouses in Lima, by the curators Fernando de Szyszlo, famous painter, and Cecilia Bákula, a prestigious art historian.

3. Art gallery olave.

Antonio Olave, is considered a living Cultural Heritage in Peru. He is considered a teacher in folk art of Peru, but in his words he is considered a researcher of ancient art, a discoverer of forgotten techniques.

4. Monastery of Santa Catalina

The museum offers an exquisite colonial architecture that corresponds to the last stages of the Renaissance, with the presence of arches of Roman style. It has paintings from the Cusco school of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, huge tapestries from the colonial era and, most notably, the chapter house where you can admire the colorful colonial paintings.

5. Museo Hilario vendivil

The family Mendívil is a family of artisans whose main representatives are Hilario Mendívil and Georgina Dueñas de Mendívil, who are dedicated to the imagery, but their images are especially famous for the lengthening of their necks. Although the best pieces of the Mendívil are in museums and private collections, some can be seen in his family home in the Plaza de San Blas and is now known as the Hilario Mendívil Museum. At the moment the family tradition continues since almost all the children of Hilario and Georgina continue with her.

6. Inca Museum

It gathers a vast collection of Qeros (ceremonial vessels of carved wood), fabrics, mummies, and idols in solid gold and silver, as well as weapons, tools and Inca pottery. Its architecture shows the splendor of the colony, like the outer balcony whose central column has the shape of a caryatid. It belongs to the National University San Antonio Abad of Cusco and has an enviable collection of archaeological pieces of the Inca culture.