The Andean Heritage: Masterpieces of Peruvian Art from the Collections of the Peabody Museum

A new exhibition at the Peabody Museum is a very special event. During the past
several decades the museum has had very few exhibitions on the scale of “The
Andean Heritage: Masterpieces of Peruvian Art from the Collections of the
Peabody Museum.” Moreover, this is the first exhibition in more than three
decades to feature the Peruvian collections, and it is the second in a series of
highlight exhibitions from the Peabody's collections that are planned for our
new rotating gallery funded by the National Endowment for the Arts. An under-
standing of why the Peabody does not participate more often in large-scale
exhibition programs involves an understanding of the nature of the museum itself.
The Peabody is principally a research and teaching institution. Exhibitions today
are inordinately expensive to install, and the limited resources of the museum
must necessarily be expended on research programs that extend around the world.
Thus, it is exciting when the museum is fortunate enough to be awarded funds
from federal and state agencies, in this case the National Endowment for the Arts
and the Massachusetts Council on the Arts and Humanities. The “Andean
I-Ieritage" will clearly demonstrate the museum's commitment to public ex-
posure of its fine collections whenever possible.