Metadata: Borys Voznytsky L’viv National Art Gallery
Collection
- Country:
- Ukraine
- Holding institution:
- Borys Voznytsky Lviv National Art Gallery
- Holding institution (official language):
- Львівська національна галерея мистецтв ім. Б .Г. Возницького
- Postal address:
- ul. V. Stefanika 3, 79000, L’viv
- Phone number:
- +38 (032) 261-4615
- Web address:
- lvivgallery.org
- Title:
- Borys Voznytsky L’viv National Art Gallery
- Title (official language):
- Львівська національна галерея мистецтв ім. Б .Г. Возницького
- Creator/accumulator:
- Borys Voznytsky L’viv National Art Gallery
- Date(s):
- 1600/1939
- Date note:
- 17th c./1939
- Language:
- Polish
- Official Aramaic (700-300 BCE); Imperial Aramaic (700-300 BCE)
- Hebrew
- Yiddish
- Ukrainian
- Extent:
- over 200 items
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Graphic material
- Scope and content:
-
This fonds contains the Borys Voznytsky L’viv National Art Gallery’s earliest written sources pertaining to Jewish history and culture; these include 14 artefacts discovered in 2010 during the disassembly of old Soviet-era posters and represent nine Italian decorated marriage contracts (ketubot) on parchment (17th - 19th century), among them some made in the city of Pisa in 1694-95.
The same collection also contains a paper amulet meant to protect a woman during childbirth (c. 1800); an ornamental table titled “Avodat Ha-Leviyyim” (“The Ministry of the Levites”) having belonged to Lwów merchant Joseph Tuscher (1929-30); a mizraḥ (ornamental picture hung on the eastern wall) made by the decorative paper-cutting method vitininka, presumably in Ukraine, in 1928; also thought to have been part of the collection of the Jewish Museum are the gallery’s samples of Yiddish typefaces, reproduced by Markus Shpet from Gródek (Gródek Jagielloński) (1858) and a chart of the Jerusalem temple of the King Herod period.
Materials housed in the collection of Iaroslava Muzyka include an album containing samples of so-called naboiki (Ukrainian: vybiiky) – ornamental designs carved on blocks used in a traditional method of manufacturing printed fabrics that, being less expensive than purchasing factory-made products, was quite popular among the poorest people in some regions of Ukraine. These are accompanied by a group of documents that relate to the study of the process of making such block-printed fabrics by Jewish printers in cities and towns of Galicia. Among these materials are sketches of tools used in the manufacture of vybiiky with explanatory captions; lists of population centres where such block-printed fabrics were manufactured; questionnaire forms for printers, with questions related to both the process of manufacturing vybiiky and the degree to which other family members were involved in it; responses from various localities of Galicia and Poland (Borysław/Borislav, Brody, Gdansk, Krosno, etc.) to inquiries about whether printers worked in these areas, etc.
- Administrative/biographical history:
-
The Borys Voznytsky L’viv National Art Gallery was established by a ruling of the Lemberg/Lwów Municipal Magistrate in 1897. Since 1914, it has been located in a building specially purchased for it which had previously belonged to the historian and collector Prof. V. Lozinski of Lemberg/Lwów University. In 1907, with funding provided by the magistrate, the gallery’s first significant collection of Western European art – approximately 2,000 items, including over 400 paintings – was acquired from the Ukrainian sugar manufacturer Ivan Yakovich. The gallery was subsequently supplemented by other collections. In particular, from 1939-46, it received parts of the collections of the Lubomirski family museum, the History Museum, the Stauropegial Brotherhood and the Baworowscy Library. With over 60,000 works of art, it is currently one of the largest museum complexes in Ukraine. Its branches include the Potocki palace, the Boim chapel, the Olesko, Zhovkva, Zolochiv, and Pidhirtsi castles, and other museum institutions. On 23 October 2009, the gallery received national status (as the L’viv National Art Gallery). On 12 April 2013 it was named after the prominent Ukrainian art historian, public figure and initiator of the restoration of castles of the L’viv region B. G. Voznytsky (1926-2012), who served as the gallery’s director for half a century (beginning in 1962).
Most of the works housed in the L’viv National Art Gallery that are by Jewish artists (B. Wachtel, Z. Menkes, M. Menkes, B. Schulz, and others) were transferred to the gallery in 1949 from the L’vov/L’viv City Museum of Arts and Crafts, to which they had been previously transferred after the liquidation of the Jewish Museum in L’vov/L’viv in 1940. A number of artworks featuring Jewish themes were bequeathed to the gallery in 1973 by L’vov/L’viv artist Iaroslava Muzyka (1894-1973), whose private collection had also included ritual and religious items and documents from the collection of the Jewish Museum.
- Access points: persons/families:
- Shpet, Markus
- Tuscher, Joseph
- Yerusha Network member:
- Jewish Theological Seminary
