Arcadópolis
A man and woman dancing the Zamacueca
Pancho Fierro, c. 1848
What you see
Two dancers face off on a patch of greenish ground. On the left, the man leans forward with his legs wide apart, one arm raised, stretching a red handkerchief between his hands. On the right, the woman turns her back almost fully to us, hands on her hips, and twists her head in profile to watch him.
The palette is spare and clean: the green jacket, the blue trousers and the red cloth against the white of her dress. Her skirt, striped with dark lines and finished in a ruffled hem, seems to swing. Notice her two long braids, tied with black bows, and the pencil inscription beneath the scene.
About Pancho Fierro
Francisco “Pancho” Fierro was born in Lima in 1807, the son of a priest and an enslaved woman of the household, and earned his living painting shop signs, bullfight posters and murals. His quick, humorous watercolours portray the tapadas, street vendors, friars, musicians and riders of nineteenth-century Lima, usually against an empty background that leaves the spotlight on clothing and gesture. He painted more than a thousand scenes, which were exported to Europe, Asia and North America, and the painter José Sabogal called him “the first Peruvian artist”.
More by Pancho Fierro
Tapada limeña
Lady bathing at Chorrillos
A watercarrier riding a donkey
A woman getting into her saya viewed from behind
A woman walking with a Llama
A woman carrying a vessel on her head and a child on her back
A man riding a mule, his whip raised, another mule loaded with grass alongside
Two musicians and a man carrying on his head a rooster in cage
A priest from the Mercederian order (Order of Our Lady of Mercy)
The Arcadópolis Museum has 443 public-domain works in 40 rooms, free to explore in 3D in your browser.