Varvara and Bohdan Khanenko

Bohdan Khanenko was a state and public figure, as well as an industrialist. He came from a noble Ukrainian Cossack family. He and his wife, Varvara Khanenko (Tereshchenko), became famous Ukrainian collectors and patrons.

At the end of the 1880s, the Khanenkos settled in Kyiv. There they organized art exhibitions, literary evenings, helped artists and historians materially, financed archaeological excavations, and published using their own funds. These published works include «Antiquities of the Dnipro Region» (6 volumes of the collection), «Crosses and icons», and scientific catalogs (including in French). They collected a thematic library of art history, totalling 3,000 volumes.

The Khanenkos decided to donate their collection to the city for the organization of the accessible public museum in Kyiv. B.I. Khanenko actively contributed to the opening of the Kyiv Art, Industrial, and Scientific Museum (1904), on the basis of which the leading cultural institutions in modern Ukraine were subsequently created, namely the Bohdan and Varvara Khanenko National Art Museum, the National Art Museum of Ukraine, and the National Museum of Ukrainian Folk Decorative Art.

The archaeological collection (3,145 items) served as the origin of the fund collection of the National Museum of the History of Ukraine, and highly artistic works of jewelry art from the Early Iron Age to the end of the 19th century from the Khanenkos’ family collection are now a gem in the exposition in its branch – the Treasury of the NMHU.