Apolonia Dorregaray (1914-2002) was one of the main practitioners of the mate burilado (gourd engraving) tradition in Peru, an art that consists of carefully decorating a gourd’s surface with fine incisions and ink by hand. This tradition is primarily practised in the central and southern highlands of the Andean region of Peru.
A native of the city of Huancayo, in the department of Junin, she learned the art of gourd engraving from her father, Toribio Dorregaray, and passed it on to her son Sixto Seguil Dorregaray. Her works record the daily experiences of agricultural life (the cultivation of tubers as well as the exchange of products), popular customs, religious festivities (such as the celebration of Virgen de Cocharcas and the feast of Santiago), folkloric dances (such as the Chonguinada dance, the Danza de las Tijeras, and Huaconada), the fauna of the highlands (foxes, condors) and of the jungle (wild felines, birds, snakes), as well as the myths of the Andean oral tradition and her personal experiences as a mother.

A. Dorregaray exhibited her engraved gourds in several contexts, mainly at regional fairs and festivals. In 1964 she participated in the first exhibition of mates burilados held in Plaza de la Constitución in Huancayo, during which she received recognition from the writer and promoter of Quechua literature, José María Arguedas. Her work was also exhibited in spaces usually dedicated to modern and contemporary art in Lima, such as the Art Center in Miraflores directed by John Davis, which hosted exhibitions of the artistic vanguard of the 1960s.

In 1973 A. Dorregaray was awarded the Prize of Honor at the First INKARI Callao Meeting, organised by SINAMOS (National System of Social Mobilization) of the Revolutionary Government of the Armed Forces. In the following decades her work was exhibited at the Museum of Italian Art and the National Museum of Archaeology, Anthropology and History in Lima. The recognition of her work in those early years was exceptional considering the prominence of male creators within the Andean traditional arts. It was only in the 1980s and 1990s that women creators dedicated to the traditional arts began to receive greater recognition from the public.

In 1995 she was the recipient of the “Grand Master of Peruvian Crafts” national prize. In 2014 the Peruvian Ministry of Culture organized the exhibition Apolonia Dorregaray y el mate burilado tradicional del Peru, obra y legado a 100 años de su nacimiento, 1914-2014 [Apolonia Dorregaray and the mate burilado tradition of Peru, works and legacy 100 years after her birth, 1914-2014], the first retrospective of her work.