Arcadópolis
A woman walking with a Llama
Pancho Fierro, c. 1848
What you see
A shaggy llama, brown with white patches, fills the left half of the sheet, head held high and a gray bundle lashed to its back. On the right, seen from behind, stands the woman, linked to the animal by a thin cord and raising a tall staff in one hand. Both figures face the same way, toward the right.
The fleece is painted in watery brown patches with darker touches for the tufts. The woman wears a pale, high-crowned hat, a gray mantle with a band of yellow and red stripes, and a deep blue skirt. Below, a few gray strokes suggest clumps of grass, and the word “Llama” is faintly penciled underneath.
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
A man and woman dancing the Zamacueca
Lady bathing at Chorrillos
A watercarrier riding a donkey
A woman getting into her saya viewed from behind
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.