Lima Museums
In this list, we recommend the best museums in Lima, where you can learn more about Peru and its history.
- Larco Museum
This museum is one of the main attractions of the city of Lima and without a doubt one of the most important in the country. With a collection of nearly 5,000 works, it shows in a very educational way the birth and evolution of the various civilizations of ancient Peru, until the arrival of the Inca Empire. Its rooms have the most complete collection of ceramics, textiles, gold and silver in perfect condition and exquisite presentation. This museum is also famous for its fertility pottery room, often referred to as the «erotic room.» - National Museum of Archaeology, Anthropology and History
Located in the district of Pueblo Libre, it is the oldest and most representative of our country in terms of the valuable, diverse and extensive cultural heritage that comes from the first scientific expeditions carried out in Peru, as well as from the first collections created by the Peruvians of the Condition. - National Museum of Peru – MUNA
The MUNA is the most recent museum that Lima has, located in the district of Pachacamac. This museum is expected to be inaugurated in its entirety in 2024. It has among its collections various temporary exhibitions that are of interest such as «Symbols of power in the old Peru” or “Traditional toys from Peru” among others. - Central Bank Museum
This museum is located in the center of Lima in what was the Central Reserve Bank. It has a complete art collection with three exhibition areas: the Archaeological Room, where you can see ceramic pieces arranged chronologically, textiles and some gold pieces. The Popular Art Room from various parts of Peru and the Peruvian Republican Art Room that shows the art of our country from the moment of independence to the present day. It also has a small numismatic collection. - Andrés del Castillo Mineral Museum
The museum, located in a beautiful republican house from the mid-19th century, has been completely restored and presents an extensive collection of Peruvian minerals from various regions of the country. As a collection of crystalline minerals, each piece looks like a true work of art from nature, with shapes that accentuate the chromatic beauty of each mineral. Its fluorescent mineral chamber glows in the dark. You can also enjoy a small collection of colonial art and some pre-Hispanic art, highlighting the textiles and ceramics of the Chancay culture. - Pedro de Osma Museum
This is the legacy of the passionate colonial art collector Don Pedro de Osma Gildemeister. It is housed in the beautiful 1906 mansion in which Don Pedro lived and today serves as a museum for his artwork. It is a must-see for lovers of religious and colonial painting and sculpture. The entire fully restored collection, as well as the house, is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful and impressive houses in Barranco, surrounded by magnificent gardens that transport us to the beginning of the 20th century. It also has a complete silverware room and another room for religious syncretism, showing a fusion between the existing beliefs in Peru before the conquest and the new religion brought by the conquerors, and how this was reflected in the social relations between the Incas and the Spanish. - Lima Museum of Art MALI
In its permanent exhibition, it shows through its multiple rooms the entire history and development of Peruvian art from its origins in pre-Hispanic times, to the splendor of colonial art, where the Cusco style stands out and extends to art of the first republic and contemporary times. In its varied collection, we can find ceramics, painting, sculpture, furniture, goldsmithing, drawing, photography and many other arts. Needless to say, this is where many of the great masterpieces of Peruvian art are found, such as the great painting «The Funeral of Atahualpa» by master artist Luis Montero. Various exhibitions take place in its temporary rooms throughout the year, each one equal to or more epic than the last, creating plenty of reasons to visit MALI again and again. All this is in the magnificent “Palacio de Exposiciones”, a building built for the Universal Exposition of Lima in 1872 and which has survived the most difficult periods of our modern history and the development of modernity.