An Inca man requests a goddess of the Incas to hand over coca, but she refuses, holding a bottle of coca wine for herself. Colour lithograph by A. Mucha, 189-.

Alphonse Mucha

[between 1890 and 1899?]

1 print : lithograph, printed in colours

Wellcome Collection

The episode may have been an invention of Mucha's. It is not mentioned by William G. Mortimer in his book Peru: history of coca, "the divine plant" of the Incas, New York 1901, though he mentions (p. 152) that an Incan queen (wife of Mayta Ccapac the fourth Inca emperor) was called Mama Coca and that her name was the deified name of coca (p. 230). Mortimer's frontispiece reproduces an allegorical watercolour by A. Robida showing Mama Coca cutting a sprig of coca leaves to present to a conquistador from Europe Much foliate decoration in Art Nouveau style, including coca leaves in the goddess's earrings