A man and a woman dancing, from a group of drawings depicting Peruvian dress

About the Artist

Francisco (Pancho) Fierro · 1807–1879

Francisco Fierro, known affectionately as Pancho Fierro, was born in Lima, Peru, in 1807, the son of an African-descended enslaved woman and, by some accounts, a Spanish priest. He grew up in the social margins of colonial and early republican Lima, and his art is inseparable from that position: an acute, sympathetic, and often satirical observer of a society stratified by race, class, and custom....