Western European Paintings in Ukrainian Museums - Before The Year 1917

Before The Year 1917

The museum collections of Western European paintings formed in different ways. Usually they were based on private collections. The collectors often sold or presented pictures they owned to other owners; sometimes (mostly after the 1905 Russian Revolution) large collections were sold abroad.

A number of Ukrainian people of art spoke out against the export of the artistic wealth and strove for its preservation in public museums and galleries. As early as in the middle of the 19th century, in Ukraine there existed private museums and ‘cabinets of fine arts’ in the universities of Kiev, Kharkov, and Odessa. It was due to the public efforts that the first Ukrainian public museum was opened in 1886 in Kharkov, and the municipal art gallery – in 1907 in Lvov. Both had large sections of Western European paintings. Some educated people paid their own money to acquire artistic objects which they wanted to donate to their native cities. In such a manner, I. Betsky and A. Alfyorov, graduates of Kharkov University, started the collection of Western European paintings at the local museum. In Kiev, it was Bogdan and Varvara Khanenko who in the 1870s began collecting works by Western European artists.