音频游览 Hall 9 – Old Ukrainian portrait of the 17th – 18th centuries

The collection of Ukrainian art of the late 17th – early 20th centuries occupies a leading place among the collections of the Andrey Sheptytsky National Museum in Lviv. It was started in 1908 by Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky and Ilarion Svientsitsky. Today the collection numbers more than 2000 artifacts. It was formed out of two main groups: old Western Ukrainian portraits of the 17th-18th centuries and Ukrainian paintings of the 19th- early 20th centuries.

The old Ukrainian portrait is an original phenomenon in the Ukrainian national heritage. It originated during Kyivan Rus and developed as an independent genre in Ukrainian lands from the late 16th century. Revitalized by the humanistic ideals of the Renaissance, the old Ukrainian portrait became established during the Baroque period. It adopted not so much the Baroque style as its ideological basis while simultaneously preserving the local tradition of painting. In the different regions of Ukraine, the old portrait acquired its own distinctive features that reflected the socio-political and cultural changes of the time.

The museum's exhibition of old portrait painting covers the end of the 17th-18th centuries chronologically  and reveals the peculiarities of the portrait's development in Western Ukraine as a leading genre in world painting. The most valuable part of the collection is the portrait of the late 17th-first half of the 18th centuries.

The integration of Western Ukrainian territories into the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1569 had an impact on the development of artistic life in general and portrait painting in particular. The Polish nobility, feeling they were part of a great nation and worthy of their glorious ancestors, declared themselves descendants of the ancient Sarmatian race. Soon Ukrainians joined the Polish gentry, since according to ancient authors the ancient warriors had settled on Ukrainian lands. The ideology of "Sarmatism," as the epitome of the chivalric ideal, was reflected in culture and art. The so-called "Sarmatian portrait" that originated in this period was its representation.

The museum exhibition presents works executed by local artists that display features of the Sarmatian period. In these works the manner of depicting a person that is typical of the Ukrainian portrait is apparent with a lesser emphasis placed on the social superiority of the subject. The paintings are executed with more delicacy, with a more generic approach to the subject. They represent different types of portraiture in terms of functionality and the level of artistic execution.