Muzeĭ mystet︠s︡tv imeni Bohdana ta Varvary Khanenkiv

This is the first publication on such a scale of the collection of world art built by a private collector in Kyiv in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. Khanenko housed his collection in a stately building and intended to bequeath it to the state, but the 1917 revolution forestalled him. The Soviet policy of forming a state museum fund of nationalized works and dispersing them to various museums and sometimes selling them spoiled its integrity, but as this catalogue shows it is still an extraordinary collection. Chapters cover many regions and periods of world art: ancient and medieval art, including extremely rare works of icon-painting of the sixth and seventh centuries; Dutch, Italian, and French painting; sculpture, majolica, faience, and porcelain; Islamic art, including Persian bronzes, and Asian art from Tibet, China, and Japan, the last especially noteworthy for fine examples of tsubas. -- Summary by John W. Emerich, Bronze Horseman Literary Agency.