This cabinet holds a collection of small Andean sculptures — some abstract, others shaped like animals — carved from alabaster, a soft, luminous stone that has long been associated with the sacred. Known as illas and mollos, these are among the most intimate and enigmatic ritual objects of Andean spirituality in the highlands.

Originating mainly from the Lake Titicaca region, these pieces were never meant to be displayed in glass cases. They were carried, safeguarded, and passed down through generations as personal, familial, or communal protectors. Their value was not aesthetic but spiritual. They were vessels of power (camac), animated objects that held fertility, strength, memory, and balance. For those who still use them today, they are “the soul of the livestock, the seed of the harvest, the double of the person.”

Forms of the spirit

Illas typically take the stylized shape of domesticated animals: llamas, alpacas, sheep, sometimes bulls. There are also vegetal illas — rarer — associated with maize, potatoes, or fava beans. These are small totems of abundance, modeled without intricate detail, in soft, schematic lines. Mollos, by contrast, tend to be more abstract in form — often geometric — but equally charged with meaning. Both types of objects were buried or activated in propitiatory rituals, invoked in offerings to the earth, and kept as guarantees of life's continuity.

These sculptures were carefully wrapped in special textiles, stored with coca leaves and miniature offerings, and brought out only for specific occasions: seasonal transitions, births, planting ceremonies, or divinations. To possess one was to carry a responsibility — to care for what sustains life, and to protect the balance between family and land, between the visible and the unseen.

Alabaster: the breathing stone

The most common material for these pieces is local alabaster, also called gypsum stone or moonstone. Its translucent hues — ranging from white and pink to warm beige — evoke ethereal qualities: softness, interiority, the hidden that pulses. It’s no coincidence that this stone was chosen to embody the animate. Its appearance shifts with light, as if the stone were breathing.

Rupture and market: what was cast out from the home

For centuries, illas and mollos were inherited and treasured with care. But in recent decades, many of these talismans have been removed from Andean homes — particularly in areas where Evangelical Protestantism has gained influence. These faith communities often condemn the use of such objects as “idolatry.” For many, embracing this new spiritual path has meant getting rid of pieces that once embodied lineage and belonging — often with sorrow or inner conflict.

As a result, many illas and mollos have entered informal markets or been sold at rural fairs by families who no longer wish to keep them. This is how many of the pieces in this collection arrived: not through the will of their original owners or makers, but as the aftermath of a spiritual and cultural rupture.

This cabinet does not simply display carved stones. It holds fragments of a millennia-old relationship with the earth and its abundance. Each of these pieces was once a seed, a shadow, a companion, a promise. Some still are — even far from home.