The Khanenkos in Rome: art collecting strategies (1874-1914)

Kateryna Hotsalo, Ph.D.

The project investigates the collecting activities of the Ukrainian art collectors Bohdan and Varvara Khanenko in Rome in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Since the private archive of the Khanenko family disappeared under odd circumstances during the Soviet era, little is known about the collecting strategies and personal contacts of Bohdan and Varvara in Rome, where they acquired a large part of their art collection. Using as a starting point testimonies from Bohdan Khanenko's "Notes", the auction catalogues and the inventory books of the Khanenko Museum, the project aims to reconstruct the socio-cultural contexts in which Bohdan and Varvara Khanenko formed the vision of their art collection.

The main questions of the project: which antiquarians and collectors influenced the Khanenkos' collecting activities in Rome?  In what ways did Bogdan and Varvara operate separately from time to time in the Roman art market – as distinctive collectors whose preferences influenced the diversity of the family art collection? What place did the contexts of the Roman antique market occupy in the Khanenkos' collecting activities and vice versa? How socio-cultural background was reflected in the Khanenkos' self-identity among European collectors of their time?