The Museo Larco occupies an 18th-century viceregal mansion in the quiet residential district of Pueblo Libre, ten minutes by taxi from the centre. Founded by collector Rafael Larco Hoyle in 1926, it holds the most comprehensive private collection of pre-Columbian art in Peru — gold and silver ornaments from the Lambayeque kingdom, Moche stirrup-spout vessels in their thousands, Nazca polychrome ceramics, and a stunning sequence of Paracas textiles. The gold and silver gallery, where the precious objects are displayed in low-lit cases, is the highlight.
A separate building houses the famous Sala Erótica, a single room of Moche pottery showing the full range of pre-Columbian sexual life, with academic captions. The museum also has open storage — visitors can wander through a back-of-house warehouse with 30,000 ceramics on shelves — and one of Lima's best terrace restaurants, set in a flowering garden.