Brazilian Collector Donates Colonial Latin American Art Works to the Metropolitan Museum

Several sources, including The Art Newspaper, informed that, in 2017, the MET received a call from James King Wei Li in which he communicated his desire to donate ten 17th and 18th centuries Colonial Andean paintings from Peru, Ecuador, and Bolivia. Eighty year old Li is the son of a Chinese ambassador who served in several Latin American countries, Brazil included. Max Hollein, director of the MET, said that the Museum only had one painting from the South American Colonial period: Nuestra Señora de Guápulo (Our Lady of Guápulo) by an unknown 18th-century painter from Cusco, given to the museum in 1964. With this donation, the MET, which had already announced a desire to develop a collection of Colonial painting, now has an important legacy. The paintings will be announced in the month of March.