The Monument to Jorge Chávez (1910-1937):the promise of a memorial crypt in honor of the Peruvian aviator

Ortiz O.G.E. · Letras (Peru) (2026) · DOI: 10.30920/letras.97.146.12

Resumen

Throughout the 19th century, large-scale monuments dedicated to heroes and liberators consistently turned to the genre of portraiture to make the recognition of their figures and military virtues more immediate and effective. The monument dedicated to Jorge Chávez (Paris, 1887 – Domodossola, 1910), created by Eugenio Baroni between 1926 and 1929 and erected in the Campo de Marte in 1937, departed from this repertoire to immortalize the feat of the Franco-Peruvian aviator through an allegorical language and art déco style that drew upon Greek myth and the permanence and monumentality of ancient Egypt. This paper will examine: 1) the spatial conception of the monument’s original placement in 1937, within the cluster of sports fields that characterized the middle-class neighborhood of Santa Beatriz; as well as the details of the monument’s relocation to the Jorge Chávez’s square in 1945, as part of the new road network connecting central and southern Lima during Leguía’s Oncenio; and 2) the monument’s origins through a study of its precedents and possible sculptural references in Europe. It will be demonstrated that the sculptor Baroni conceived the monument with a funerary function, akin to that of an Egyptian crypt, as its symbolic essence. Additionally, technical details from a significant file in the Municipal Historical Archive will be presented, allowing for a deeper understanding of the aesthetic and historical value of this monumental ensemble.

Instituciones: Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos