PolisH institute oF WorlD art stuDies Des collections aux musées. collectionneurs et passeurs culturels au temps De Feliks Jasieński (1861–1929) From collections to museums collectors anD cultural meDiators in the time oF Feliks Jasieński (1861–1929) sous la direction de / edited by agnieszka kluczewska-Wójcik & ewa Bobrowska Polish institute of World art studies & académie Polonaise des sciences – centre scientifique à Paris & tako Publishing House Warsaw–Paris–toruń 2022 Publication subsidised within the framework of the programme cZasoPisma / neWsPaPers by the ministry of culture and national Heritage, Fund for the Promotion of culture. agreement no. 01687/20/FPK/iK DosKonaŁa nauKa / excellent science by the ministry of education and science. agreement no. DnK/sn/515564/2021 reviewers Prof. Katarzyna Kulpińska Prof. iwona luba Proofreading / relecture Krzysztof Z. cieszkowski, clément Guesnu Photographs the materials have been made available by the authors of the texts together with the right to their publication. in case of public and private collections the source has been indicated. in other cases the editorial staff has made every effort to attribute the image to a source. image de couverture / on the cover leon Wyczółkowski, Portrait of Feliks Jasieński (detail), 1911, national museum in Kraków © copyright by the authors, 2022 © copyright by Polish institute of World art studies, 2022 © copyright by académie Polonaise des sciences - centre scientifique à Paris, 2022 © copyright by tako Publishing House, 2022 issn 2543-4624 isBn 978-83-66758-16-2 Polish institute of World art studies ul. Warecka 4/6 – 10, 00–040 Warszawa e-mail: biuro@world-art.pl www.world-art.pl académie Polonaise des sciences – centre scientifique à Paris 74, rue lauriston, 75116 Paris e-mail secretariat@paris.pan.pl www.paris.pan.pl tako Publishing House ul. słowackiego 71/5, 87–100 toruń e-mail: tako@tako.biz.pl www.tako.biz.pl TABLE DES MATIÈRES / TABLE OF CONTENTS Jerzy Malinowski Avant-propos / Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Agnieszka Kluczewska-Wójcik, Ewa Bobrowska Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 I. Relations – connexions – réseaux / Relationships - Connections - Networks Arnaud Bertinet Krzysztof Pomian, Le musée, une histoire mondiale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Julie Verlaine Les sociétés d’amis des musées autour de 1900, de Paris à Cracovie en passant par Berlin . La naissance transnationale d’un mécénat collectif . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 Léa Saint-Raymond The Sociology of Self-Declared Collectors at the Turn of the 19th and 20th Centuries . . . . . . . . . . . 31 J. Pedro Lorente House Museums Boosting Cultural Districts in the Belle Époque: the Calle Fortuny Neighbourhood in Madrid and its European Precedents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 Tomasz F. de Rosset Le musée polonais à l’époque de Feliks Jasieński . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 II. Muséalisations des collections privées / Musealisations of Private Collections Agnieszka Kluczewska-Wójcik Feliks « Manggha » Jasieński, collectionneur et donateur du Musée national de Cracovie . . . . . . 63 Hanna Rudyk Bohdan and Varvara Khanenko and Their “Encyclopedic” Art Collection . Unfolding a Vision of Public Museum in Ukraine on the Turn of 19th–20th Centuries . . . . . . . . . . 77 Lucie Chopard Du domestique au muséal : la collection Grandidier à l’entresol de la Grande Galerie du Musée du Louvre (1895–1915) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87 Vita Susak From Private Collections to the National Institutions: Examples from Lviv . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97 Milena Woźniak-Koch Between Private and Public: Jewish-Polish Art Collecting in Warsaw and Its Impact on Museums (1880–1939) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109 III. Les nouvelles pratiques du collectionnisme / The New Practicies of Collecting Kamila Kłudkiewicz Izabella Czartoryska-Działyńska and the Question of Female Art Collecting at the Turn of the 19th and 20th Centuries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121 Pauline Prevost-Marcilhacy Léon Gauchez (1825–1907) promoteur de l’art moderne : itinéraire d’un marchand de la collection aux musées . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131 Tomáš Winter African Artefacts and Czech Folk Culture in Prague around 1890 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143 Györgyi Fajcsák The Birth of the Asian Art Museum of Hungary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151 Markéta Hánová Discovering Japanese Art: Collectors at the Heart of Europe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161 DES COLLECTIONS AUX MUSÉES FROM COLLECTIONS TO MUSEUMS Hanna Rudyk The Bohdan and Varvara Khanenko National Museum of Arts, Kyiv Bohdan and Varvara Khanenko and Their “Encyclopedic” Art Collection. Unfolding a Vision of Public Museum in Ukraine on the Turn of 19th–20th Centuries The pivotal role played by Feliks Jasieński in the culture of Kraków and Poland clearly resonates with the contribution made by Bohdan and Varvara Khanenko during the same historical period to the culture of Kyiv and Ukraine . The Khanenko Museum (the Bohdan and Varvara Khanenko National Museum of Arts) in Kyiv holds the richest national collection of world art in Ukraine (ill . 1) . The museum was founded at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries by Bohdan and Varvara Khanenko, outstanding Ukrainian art collectors and cultural figures . How did this happen? Who were the Khanenkos and what was their ambition? Let us take a closer look at the Ukrainian story of these private collectors who founded a national museum . Both Bohdan and Varvara Khanenko were born in the mid-19th century in northern Ukraine, in Chernihiv Province . Their social origins were different, but complementary in many features . Bohdan Khanenko (1849–1917) was the offspring of the old noble Ukrainian family of the Khanenkos, known from the 17th century . Among Bohdan’s ancestors was Mykhailo Khanenko, Hetman of rightbank Ukraine,1 as well as many other influential 1 Hetman – political and military commander of Ukraine in the 17th–18th centuries, and again in 1918 . Ukrainian politicians, clergymen and intellectuals . In the early 1870s Bohdan Khanenko graduated from the law faculty of Moscow University . He started his juridical career in St . Petersburg . It was there that he took a great interest in art and art history . Later he wrote in his memoirs about that time, “A new world opened up in front of me, I formed a new circle of interesting acquaintances and, since then, my vocation was determined, I irrevocably began to study old paintings and decided to collect such works .”2 Thus the Khanenkos’ future universal collection started with the rather traditional interest of Bohdan Khanenko in the paintings of the old masters (ill . 2) . In 1874 Bohdan Khanenko married Varvara Tereshchenko, the elder daughter of Nykola Tereshchenko, an emerging Ukrainian sugar-tycoon . Extremely successful as merchants, the Tereshchenkos became new nobility in 1870 on account of Nykola’s generous philanthropic projects . “Striving for the Public Good” read the motto on their coat of arms . During the era of rising social and national responsibility of the Ukrainian elite, the Tereshchenkos 2 “Notes by B . I . Khanenko – unfinished manuscript of the history of the collection, notes on the purchased exhibits, antique and Western sculpture, etc .”, (n .d .); KhMA (Inventory 1, File 21, Unit 1: 16v) . All archival materials are translated from Russian by H . Rudyk . 78 Hanna Rudyk ill. 1. the Khanenko museum – the Khanenkos’ historic mansion, Kyiv ill. 2. Bohdan Khanenko, early 1910s (?), photograph, namua – Архів Національного Художнього Музею України were recognised leaders of this movement . Seeking to adopt an aristocratic style of life, Nykola Tereshchenko and his younger brother Fedir Tereshchenko started collecting art . Thus Varvara grew up not just among nouveaux riches, but also among new passionate amateurs and patrons of art . Along with a love for arts she also absorbed the Tereshchenkos’ inherent traditions of philanthropy . These two predispositions, her sensitivity to art and to charity, had a key impact upon her life path and shaped the future museum visions and actions which she shared with Bohdan Khanenko . (ill . 3) . Living in Saint Petersburg in the mid-1870s, the newly-wed Khanenkos could afford “only books on art and some occasional prints” .3 Later, when Bohdan was appointed a Justice of the Peace for one of the city districts, they could allow themselves to acquire pieces of old Saxon porcelain and other objects of European applied art . A very important period for them as art collectors were the years spent in Warsaw where Bohdan Khanenko served from 1876 to 1881 . In his memoirs, that serve as a unique source for our knowledge of the history of the collection, he described in detail the Warsaw milieu of art amateurs, collectors 3 “Notes by B . I . Khanenko – unfinished manuscript of the history of the collection, notes on the purchased exhibits, antique and Western sculpture, etc .”; KhMA (Inventory 1, File 21, Unit 1, [n .d .]: 13r) . Bohdan and Varvara Khanenko and Their “Encyclopedic” Art Collection... and dealers, and complained about the weakness of the market for old masters, the reason for which he identified as the rise of the patriotic interest of Polish collectors in domestic contemporary painting . Among the Khanenkos’ key acquisitions of that time were European paintings from the collection of the Palace of Count Bruhl and from that of the painter and restorer Wojciech Kolesiński .4 As early as 1876, however, the Khanenkos bought a large Persian blue-and-white vase with openwork brass lid in Warsaw, for 300 rubles .5 Was this vase the only Islamic artwork purchased at that early period of the collection? We do not know . The Polish cultural scene, long sensitive to the artistic appeal of the Middle East, could hardly have left the Khanenkos uninterested . It was most probably there and then that they were initiated into the delights of Islamic art . There are too many blank spaces in the history of the Khanenkos . The fact is that in 1922, immediately after the death of Varvara Khanenko, almost the entire archive of the Khanenko family disappeared under unexplained circumstances . Only a few fragments survived, including the memoirs already cited and an inventory of the collection of Asian ceramics . All efforts to trace the history of the lost archive have so far been unsuccessful . In 1880s the Khanenkos travelled extensively throughout Europe buying artworks from dealers and collectors in Rome, Paris, Vienna, Madrid and elsewhere . They were still focused mainly on the art of early Western Europe and of classical antiquity . However, as Bohdan admitted in his memoirs, by that time they also had interest in “other acquisitions” .6 Among these latter were ancient Russian and Ukrainian icons, acquired, as Bohdan stated, “more by my wife” . In one of her many letters to the famous Russian collector and dealer Illya Ostroukhov,7 Varvara Khanenko wrote about icons, “I feel their beauty, and I get real pleasure looking at them . . . this is a true revelation for me .”8 Despite the loss of the archive and the fact that the Khanenkos’ 4 “Notes by B . I . Khanenko…”; KhMA (Inventory 1, File 21, Unit 1, [n .d .]: 23–24) . 5 “Inventory description of the Eastern faience collection, compiled by the founder of the collection B .I . Khanenko”; KhMA (Inventory 1, File 3, Unit 10, [n .d .]: 20v) . 6 “Notes by B . I . Khanenko…”; KhMA (Inventory 1, File 21, Unit 1: 45v) . 7 Illya Ostroukhov (1858 – 1929) – a Russian painter, connoisseur, and collector of ancient icons . 8 Levchenko (2005: 52) . 79 ill. 3. Varvara Khanenko, photocopy of the portrait, painted by aleksey Kharlamov in 1896, Khma – Науковий Архів Музею Ханенків icons were forcibly transferred to another museum in 1932–1934, today we have precise information on the 64 ancient Russian icons that were displayed in the Khanenkos’ private gallery .9 Ancient icons also inspired Bohdan Khanenko . Scholarly interest in icons as art objects as well as their expert collecting were new phenomena at this time, associated with the rise of interest in Byzantine and Western Asian art . In his memoirs Khanenko reflected upon the closeness of ancient icons to Old Greek and Old Italian religious paintings, and suggested that it would be very interesting to see sacred images from all these traditions within the walls of one gallery .10 This place in the memoirs indicates that, while being completely self-educated in art, Bohdan Khanenko had developed the thinking and taste of a true art connoisseur and gallery curator . Besides icons, these “other acquisitions” obviously included Islamic artworks . Writing around 9 Levchenko (2005: 52) . “Notes by B . I . Khanenko…”; KhMA (Inventory 1, File 21, Unit 1: 43v) . 10 80 Hanna Rudyk the mid-1880s, Khanenko referred to “a large jar with a metallic sheen, most likely from the era of Shah Abbas in the 16th century”,11 purchased at the posthumous sale of the private collection of Mikhail Zaitsevsky in Moscow . 12 In the end of 1880s the Khanenkos finally decided upon permanent residence in Kyiv . Bohdan Khanenko’s memoirs serve as a unique source of information on the cultural and artistic life of Kyiv during this period . There existed a few private art, historical and archeological museums, and Kyiv University had started collecting Ukrainian antiquities .13 Together with the establishment of the Kyiv Society for the Encouragement of the Arts in 1891, these innovations indicated the rise of interest in Ukrainian domestic art and history among the Kyiv elite . The Khanenkos also collected “Ukrainica”, not only ancient icons, but also objects of so-called “Cossack antiquities” . In the words of Bohdan Khanenko, they did this “in order to create in Kyiv a department of local history of the 15th18th centuries” .14 This idea of reconstructing and representing Ukrainian history of the period prior to Russian colonization of Ukraine was a political and patriotic ambition of the time . This ambition was implemented in the late 1890s and early 1900s when Bohdan Khanenko, first as deputy chairman and later as the chairman of the Kyiv Society for Arts and Antiquities, directed the successful political and financial campaign for the development of the first public museum of art and history in Kyiv (ill . 4) . Khanenko personally convinced the Russian Emperor Nicholas II to approve the idea . He raised almost 250,000 roubles for the museum, and personally managed a very complex architectural project . Finally, he encouraged dozens of collectors, who together donated almost 20,000 objects to the museum .15 In addition, the Khanenko family donated over 3,000 archeological items to the first Kyiv museum exhibition, which opened in 1899 . This donation included pieces found in Ukraine and dat- 11 “Notes by B . I . Khanenko…”, KhMA (Inventory 1, File 21, Unit 1: 33r) . 12 Mikhail Zaitsevsky (1815–1885) – a famous Moscow collector of art and antiquities . 13 “Notes by B . I . Khanenko…”; KhMA (Inventory 1, File 21, Unit 1: 29–30) . 14 “Notes by B . I . Khanenko…”; KhMA (Inventory 1, File 21, Unit 1: 32r) . 15 Osvyashcheniye (1905: 27–29) . ing from the Stone Age to the period of Slavonic settlements in the Dnieper region . The Khanenkos published a catalogue of this part of their collection in seven volumes, entitled Antiquities of the Dnieper region .16 In 1902 Bohdan Khanenko travelled to Egypt, where he bought over thirty objects of Ancient Egypt archeology from the store of the newly-opened Cairo Museum . He donated almost all these items to the Archeological department of the first Kyiv museum .17 Varvara Khanenko played her own significant role in the “first Kyiv museum project” . In the early 1900s she became a key activist of the Kyiv Handicrafts Society, concerned with the preservation of authentic Ukrainian folk art traditions . She passionately collected antique Ukrainian carpets, embroidery, ceramics and tempered glass . In 1904 she opened a school and a workshop producing Ukrainian traditional weaving and fabric printing in the village of Olenivka on their family estate near Kyiv . Varvara invited the famous Ukrainian modernist artist and art connoisseur Vassyl Krychevsky,18 who developed designs for Olenivka products and taught art at the school . Following the ideas of the European Arts and Crafts Movement, Varvara Khanenko not only sought to preserve traditions of folk art, but also regarded it as a pure and powerful source of inspiration for new art . In 1906 she presented her folk art collections together with Olenivka workshop products at the First South Russian Handicraft Exhibition in the first Kyiv museum . The inventory states that by 1909 Varvara Khanenko had personally donated more than 1,000 pieces of Ukrainian embroidery, about 150 items of traditional ceramics and glass and ten folk carpets to its ethnographic department .19 Both Khanenkos also donated various Ukrainian antiquities to the museum, including icons, and memorabilia of famous people . The Khanenkos’ active involvement in the development of the first public museum in Kyiv testifies to their maturity as collectors and patrons of culture as early as at the turn of 19th and 20th centuries . Delivering the keynote speech during the ceremony of official opening and consecration of the 16 Khanenko, Khanenko (1899–1902) . Izvestia (1902: 51–52) . 18 Vassyl Krychevsky (1873–1952) – Ukrainian modernist architect, artist, art collector, scholar and educator . 19 “Ethnographic Department Inventory book (1902– 1912)”; NAMUA (file 1/85) . 17 Bohdan and Varvara Khanenko and Their “Encyclopedic” Art Collection... 81 ill. 4. the Kyiv artistic, industrial and scientific museum organized by Bohdan Khanenko in 1899– 1904, 1904, photography, Khma – Науковий Архів Музею Ханенків Kyiv Artistic, Industrial and Scientific Museum of Emperor Nicholas Alexandrovich in January 1904, Bohdan Khanenko proclaimed a universal mission statement for collectors: “Creations by geniuses must not belong only to those who own them . If the owner of a work of art, for example, a painting by Rembrandt, destroys it, then he will reduce not only his own wealth, but the wealth that belongs to all, he will reduce the wealth that evokes and ennobles feelings and dreams of mankind expressed by men of genius, in which mankind has the right to contemplate and comprehend itself .”20 The first Kyiv museum was a very important project for Bohdan and Varvara Khanenko . Their donations there were truly spectacular: today four national Kyiv museums, which divided the collection of the first museum between them during the 20th century, proudly present parts of the collection of the Khanenkos within their permanent displays .21 And yet the first Kyiv museum was not the Khanenkos’ opus magnum . In 1913 the couple announced plans for the Khanenko Museum to be located in their private house in Tereshchenkivska 20 Osvyashcheniye (1905: 8–9) . The “heirs” of the first Kyiv public museum are the National Art Museum of Ukraine, The National History Museum of Ukraine and its branch – The Treasury, the National Museum of Ukrainian Folk and Decorative Art, and the National Museum Kyiv Picture Gallery . 21 street in Kyiv . The periodical Art of Southern Rus informed its readers that “V .N . and B .I . Khanenko intend to establish an art museum bearing their own name, for which they are going to remake their mansion and collect paintings and objects of applied art, after which the museum will be bequeathed to Kyiv .”22 Let us go back more than hundred years and look inside the Khanenkos’ private mansion . The main two-storied building on the estate was erected in the late 1880s with the purpose of combining the functions of a residence and a private art gallery . The house was artistically adapted to accommodate the valuable and diverse art collection . Its facade and the interiors on the ground and the first floors were designed in a fashionable style of historicism, which involved the use of various visual idioms from the great eras of European art . Archival photographs of the mansion taken in the first decades of the 20th century depict the collection that was destined to become a world art museum for the public . The Entrance Hall and the Grand Staircase, adorned in the Baroque style, featured Italian paintings of the 18th century, Spanish sculpture of the 18th century, Asian, European and 22 “Khronika” (1913: 506) . 82 Hanna Rudyk ill. 5. the entrance Hall and the Grand staircase of the Khanenkos’ mansion, 1900s, photograph, Khma – Науковий Архів Музею Ханенків ill. 6. the italian Hall of the Khanenkos’ mansion, 1900s, photograph, Khma – Науковий Архів Музею Ханенків Bohdan and Varvara Khanenko and their “encyclopedic” art Collection... 83 ill. 7. the red Hall of the Khanenkos’ mansion, 1900s, photograph, Khma – Науковий Архів Музею Ханенків Russian arms and armour from the 16th to the 19th centuries, and Hindu Vishnuite wooden sculpture of the 18th century (ill . 5) . The Italian Hall, stylised in the manner of the ceremonial hall of a Gothic palace, presented collections of ancient Russian and Ukrainian icons, Chinese and Japanese bronzes, the finest Persian ceramics and metalwork, pieces of Islamic book illumination, Turkish and Persian textiles and carpets, Italian and Spanish majolica and early Italian painting . Most of the artworks dated (or were regarded by the Khanenkos as dating) from the 16th and 17th centuries (ill . 6) . The Red Antechamber, designed as a Renaissance hall, combined Italian (or regarded by the Khanenkos as Italian) paintings, sculpture, textiles, furniture with Islamic and Buddhist metalwork (ill . 7) . The Gallery was mainly dedicated to the collection of Dutch and Flemish painting, as well as European applied arts and selected pieces of Roman antiquity . The neighbouring Delft Dining Room, furnished as a room from a 17th century Dutch burgher house, was where the Khanenkos presented 17th and 18th century Delft blue-and-white faience, 17th–18th century German and Polish faience, 17th– 19th century Chinese and Japanese porcelain, and some European paintings . The Golden Chamber, adorned in the style of early 18th century French rococo, was embellished in the spirit of that time with genuine Chinese and Japanese art as well as with European chinoiserie artworks . In general, the Khanenkos’ private gallery consisted of eight rooms . Remarkably, the Asian collection was often exhibited side by side with Western and Eastern European art of the same period . It appears as if this juxtaposition of geographically and culturally distant albeit synchronic artistic productions particularly inspired the Ukrainian collectors . Given the fact of the loss of the Khanenkos’ archive, these old photographs preserve the memory of a unique and truly universal assemblage of art and antiquities, many sections of which were forcibly relocated from the Khanenkos’ historic house after 1925, by the decision of the Soviet authorities . Most of the collections and single artworks that were removed were transferred to other Ukrainian museums in line with the Soviet policy of reorganisation of museums by subject . A dozen particularly valuable items were removed from the 84 Hanna Rudyk ill. 8. the Khanenkos’ Persian aquamanile in a shape of zebu cow with a calf and a lion, dated 1206, stolen by state Hermitage museum in 1931, photograph, Khma – Науковий Архів Музею Ханенків collection for sale abroad as part of the Soviet fundraising campaign in the late 1920s and early 1930s . Other highlights of the Khanenkos’ collection, including the world-famous Persian aquamanile dated 1206 in a form of zebu cow with a calf and a lion, were forcibly taken from Kyiv to the “metropolitan” State Hermitage Museum (ill . 8) . In addition, many of the Khanenkos’ artworks were stolen by the Germans during their occupation of Kyiv in 1941–1943 . However, the “core” part of the Khanenkos’ European, Asian and Ancient world collections survived the cataclysms of the 20th century and are preserved in the museum . Let us now focus briefly on the Islamic and Asian part of the collection . The Khanenkos pioneered the expert collecting of Asian art in Ukraine . Since 1876 their interest in the art of Islam never waned . Bohdan Khanenko’s handwritten inventory on Oriental ceramics described over a hundred items of Persian, Turkish, Arabic, Central Asian and Caucasian pottery purchased in 1889 (1890 according to Khanenko’s notes) at the World Fair in Paris .23 However, a true milestone that shaped the Khanenkos’ knowledge and sharpened their interest in Islamic art was the world exhibition Meisterwerke muhammedanischer Kunst that took place in Munich in 1910 . “Die Sammlung der Herrn Khanenko” participated in a large-scale artistic ex23 “Inventory description of the Eastern faience collection, compiled by the founder of the collection B .I .Khanenko”; KhMA ([n .d .] Inventory 1, File 3, Unit 10) . hibition that presented more than 3,500 celebrated pieces of Islamic art from key world collections to the public .24 In the years following the Munich exhibition the Kyiv collectors made their most valuable Islamic acquisitions . Among these were several dozen items of ancient Persian Seljuk and Ilkhanid brassware, Safavid ceramics and Qajar arms and armour acquired in the early 1910s from the collection formerly belonging to the Russian general Piotr Charkovsky .25 We can see this collection on one of the old photographs of the Khanenkos’ mansion together with Persian and Turkish brocaded and embroidered silk velvets, Syrian glass, an assortment of Turkish Iznik and Kutahya ceramіcs, and Spanish majolica from Valencia, utilizing Islamic technology and taste . In 1914, at the Paris sale of the collection of Arthur Sambon,26 the Khanenkos purchased exquisite pieces of Persian pre-Mongol ceramics from the 12th to the early 13th centuries .27 The same year in Paris they became owners of around a dozen folios of Persian and Arabic miniatures and calligraphy, hypothetically from the 13th to the 17th centuries, 24 Ausstellung von Meisterwerken (1910: 47–48) . Piotr Charkovsky (1845–1900) – Russian general, collector of Persian art . See also: Malakova (2016:110–121) . 26 Arthur Sambon (1867–1947) – French historian, numismatist and art collector, President of the Paris Chamber of Art Experts . 27 Bilenko, Rudyk (2005: 7) . 25 Bohdan and Varvara Khanenko and their “encyclopedic” art Collection... from the collection of Frederik Robert Martin .28 Among these was an illustrated folio from the celebrated Arabic manuscript De Materia Medica by Pedanius Dioscorides dating from 1224, and several rare 15th and 16th century Shahnama illustrations . As we have seen in the archival photographs of the house, old carpets – Persian, Turkish, Azerbaijani and Turkmen – were another group within the Islamic collection .29 The art of East Asia comprised another oriental focus . In 1904–1905, during the Russian Japanese war, Bohdan Khanenko served as a representative of the Russian Red Cross Mission in Harbin, Manchuria . It is presumed that he brought items of Chinese and Japanese art back to Kyiv from there . The Khanenkos bought several very rare Chinese paintings dating from the 16th and 17th centuries at the already-mentioned sale of the collection of Arthur Sambon .30 Their Chinese collection also included Tang burial terracottas, Ming and Qing porcelain, and Qing ritual bronze sculptures and vessels . As regards Japanese art, the Khanenkos possessed around 300 carefully selected ukiyo-e woodblock prints, a collection that represents various schools and individual masters from the 17th to the 19th centuries . The second important part of their Japanese collection consisted of almost 400 items of tsuba and other elements of traditional Japanese sword adornment dating from the 16th to the 19th centuries . Significant parts of both groups of artworks were bought in 1912 at the Paris sale at Hôtel Drouot from the collection of a certain K . Morita .31 The Khanenkos’ keen interest in Japanese art was stimulated by a number of events, from the Paris World Fair in 1878 to the Hermitage Exhibition in 1893, that displayed Japanese gifts received by Tsarevich Nicholas, the heir to the throne, during his Far Eastern trip . As studies show, by the end of the 19th century Japanese art occupied a leading position among East Asian arts in the spectrum of interests of Russian collectors . The Khanenkos were personally acquainted with some of the other collectors . The Asian section of the Khanenkos’ collection also included about a dozen works of Hindu and Buddhist wooden and metal sculpture . In his last will signed in spring 1917 Bohdan Khanenko transferred “his part of the collection” to Varvara Khanenko, and expressed the hope that she would bequeath the whole collection to the city of Kyiv, and that a public museum of world art would be established in their mansion .32 Despite many difficult challenges during the Ukrainian historical period of 1917–1922, Varvara Khanenko implemented the plan . Immediately after the October 1917 coup d’état in Petrograd she managed to evacuate the part of their collection that was located there to Kyiv . Several successive changes of political power in Kyiv in 1918, and the associated threats to the collection and to the house as well as to dignity and to life, impelled the 65-year-old Varvara Khanenko to sign a Deed of Gift and transfer all valuables, including the mansion, to the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences . This deed stipulated that the museum must be open to the wider public, that the collection should not be divided nor moved from the house, and that an Institute of Art History must be organised in a neighbouring house that also belonged to the Khanenkos33 . But early in 1919 the Russian Bolsheviks established their rule in Kyiv and forcibly nationalised the Khanenkos’ collection together with the house . The museum, opened to the public de facto in May 1919, was officially established on 23 June 1919 by a Decree of the Council of People’s Commissars .34 Since 1917 Varvara Khanenko had rejected several opportunities to emigrate . She also rejected the offer from the German military commandment in Kyiv (supporting the government of Pavlo Skoropadsky35) to take the collection safely to Germany to establish a private museum there in her name .36 She took the risk and stayed . From 1919 until 1922 she lived in the house, taking all possible precautions regarding the museum . She invited art historians to study the collection and to develop museum 32 28 Frederik Robert Martin (1868–1933) – Swedish diplomat, scholar, art collector and dealer, connoisseur of Islamic art . 29 Bilenko, Rudyk (2005: 7) . 30 Bilenko, Rudyk (2005: 6) . 31 Bilenko, Rudyk (2005: 6) . 85 “Copy of Bohdan Khanenko’s Last Will”, 1917; KhMA (Inventory 1, File 35, Unit 5:1r) . 33 “Varvara Khanenko’s Deed of Gifting”, 1918; VNLU IM (1–26173) . 34 Sobranije (1919) . 35 Pavlo Skoropadsky (1873–1945) – Ukrainian political and military commander, Hetman of Ukraine in 1918 . 36 Serii Hilyarov, „Muzei mystests Vseukrainskoi Akademii Nauk, 1919–1930”, KhMA (Inventory 1, File 18, Unit 78: 53r) . 86 Hanna Rudyk exhibitions . She promoted Professor Mykola Makarenko37 to the position of Director of the AUAS (All-Ukrainian Academy of Sciences’) Khanenko Museum of Arts, as the museum was named during the years 1920–1924 . Until her final days she participated in meetings of the Museum Committee, a supervisory board that included prominent Ukrainian scholars . Varvara Khanenko died in May 1922, and a week later the Khanenkos’ archives disappeared . In 1924 the Khanenkos’ names were removed from the title of the museum title “due to the complete absence of the Khanenkos’ revolutionary merits, connected with the service of proletarian culture” .38 In 1925, the first transfers of the collection took place and the political campaign of obliteration of the memory of the Khanenkos began . The names of Bohdan and Varvara Khanenko were returned to the official museum title only in 1999 . Bibliography Ausstellung von Meisterwerken 1910 = Ausstellung von Meisterwerken muhammedanischer Kunst. Musikfeste. Amtlicher Führer, exhibition cat ., Rudolf Mosse (ed .), München 1910 . Bilenko, Rudyk 2005 = Bilenko, Halyna, Rudyk, Hanna: The Bohdan and Varvara Khanenko National Museum of Arts. Oriental collection (in Ukrainian and English), Vital-press Publishing House, Kyiv 2005 . Izvestia 1902 = Известия Императорской Археологической Комиссии. Прибавление к выпуску 3-му (Izvestija Imperatorskoj Arkheologicheskoj komissii. Pribavlenije k vypusku 3-mu), Типография Главного Управления Уделов, Санкт-Петербург, (Tipografija Glavnogo Upravenija Udelov, SanktPetersburg) 1902 . Khnanenko, Khanenko 1899–1902 = Ханенко В . Н ., Ханеко Б . И .: Древности Приднепровья, Вып .1, Каменный и Бронзовый век (1899); Вып . 2 и 3, Эпоха до переселения народов (1899, 1900); Вып . 4, Эпоха переселения народов (1901); Вып . 5, Эпоха славянская (1902); Вып . 6, Древности Приднепровья и Причерноморья (1902) . (Antiquities of 37 Mykola Makarenko (1877–1938) – Ukrainian archeologist, art historian, Director of the VUAN Khanenko Museum of arts (1920–1924) . 38 “Meeting of the Museum Committee Minutes”, 26 .05 .1924; KhMA (Inventory 1, File 13, Unit 34, n . 20) . the Dnieper region: Vol .1, Stone Age and Bronze Age (1899); Vol . 2 and 3, The Era before the Migration Period (1899, 1900); Vol . 4, The Era of the Migration Period (1901); Vol . 5, The Slavonic Era 1902; Vol . 6, Antiquities of the Dnieper and the Black Sea coast, 1902), Типография Кульженко, Киев (Tipografija Kul’zhenko, Kiev) 1899–1902 Iskusstvo Yuzhnoj Rusi 1913 = Искусство Южной Руси, (Iskusstvo Yuzhnoj Rusi), 11–12 (1913): 506 . Levchenko 2005 = Левченко, Сергей (Levchenko, Sergеj): “Из истории формирования коллекции древнерусского искусства семьи Ханенко” (Iz istorii formirovaniya kollektsii drevnerusskogo iskusstva sem’ji Khanenko), Ханенківські читання, (Khanenkivski chytannia), Київський університет, Київ (Kyivs’kyi universytet, Kyiv) 2005 . Malakova 2016: Малакова Ирина (Malakova Irina): “Труды и дни Петра Чарковського”, (“Trudy i dni Petra Charkovskogo”), Антиквар (Antikvar), 5–6 (2016): 110–121 . Osvyashcheniye 1905 = Освящение и открытие Киевскаго Художественно-промышленнаго и научнаго музея Императора Николая Александровича (Osvyashcheniye i otkrytiye Kijevskago Hudozhestvenno-promyshlennago i nauchnago muzeja Imperatora Nikolaja Aleksandrovicha), Типография Кульженко, Киев (Tipografija Kul’zhenko, Кiev) 1905 . Sobranije 1919 = Собрание узаконений и распоряжений Рабоче-Крестьянского правительства Украины за 1919 год (Sobranije uzakonyenij i rasporyazhenij Raboche-krest’yanskogo pravitel’stva Ukrajiny za 1919), II: 134 . sources KhMA = Науковий Архів Музею Ханенків (The Khanenko Museum Archive), Kyiv . NAMUA = Архів Національного художнього музею України (The National Art Museum of Ukraine Archive), Kyiv . VNLU IM = Національна бібліотека України імені В . І . Вернадського, Інститут рукопису (Vernadsky National Library of Ukraine, Institute of Manuscripts) .