Peruvian Retablo

A skilled storyteller sculpts a cultural journey into Andean life

This large, colorful retablo is exemplary of Alfredo López’s finest work. It holds layers of meaning about his community’s heritage and the details he chooses to depict. He learned to make retablos from his father and grandfather, and today still uses his grandfather’s molds. During the tumultuous 1980s when the militant Marxist-Leninist “Shining Path” insurrection took over the highlands, many families fled the region. López’s family managed to stay, and his grandfather was pivotal in keeping the retablo tradition alive.

Retablos grew from early portable altars carried to South America by Spanish missionaries. Saint Mark—the patron saint of farm animals—became a favorite figure of cattle ranchers and was believed to protect the herds from disease and theft. Thus did the worlds of colonists, missionaries, and indigenous people begin to entwine. The inclusion of cattle with everyday life and religious practice still marks the retablos of Ayacucho—this box included.