The National Folk Decorative Art Museum is a museum dedicated to Ukrainian Folk decorative art in Kiev, Ukraine. The National Folk Decorative Art Museum is one of the largest art museums in Ukraine. It is located on the grounds of the Kiev Pechersk Lavra and is housed in the former Metropolitan's residence and the adjacent Annunciation The museum collection was established in 1899 as part of the collection of the newly founded City Antiquity and Art Museum, which was renamed in 1904 the "Kyiv Art, Industry and Science Museum". Now the reserves and displays of the museum contain over 75,000 artifacts of Ukrainian traditional folk and professional decorative art dating from 15th century to present days. Many of them are household and domestic articles varied in material, shape, decoration, and purpose which talented craftsmen had turned into highly artistic items inhering the wealth of regional specificities. Art works created by professional artisans demonstrate implementation of established folk traditions in their creative concepts. The museum permanent exhibition which totals some 1,500 sq. m. represents all types of Ukrainian folk art: carpet weaving, weaving, print, embroidery, ceramics, wood carving and painting, artistic leather work, horn and metal work, glassware, porcelain, Easter egg painting, folk painting and iconography. The pride of the Museum is its extensive collection of Ukrainian folk costumes of the 19th — first half of the 20th century representing all regions of Ukraine, in which are synthesized folk arts of style, sewing, weaving, embroidery, applique, print, wicker-work, artistic leather work and metalwork. Also deserving mention are the collection of traditional trappings: “duckachs”, coral and Venetian glass beads, beadwork. Especially valuable objects, both from the historical and artistic viewpoints, are wooden carved silver-mounted cross of 1576, clay glazed tiles of 15th — 18th centuries, Cossack tobacco-pipes and powder flasks of 18th — 19th centuries, silk woven sashes of 18th century, embroidered in gold and silver, 18th-century vestments, "guta" glassware of 16th — 18th centuries, production of leading Ukrainian porcelain and faience enterprises of 18th — 19th centuries: Kyevo-Mezhighirskaya faience factory and Volokitinsky porcelain works. The Museum possesses Ukraine's largest collection of works by Maria Prymachenko, which includes more than 500 paintings. A special showroom accommodates the canvases by Kateryna Bilokur. They are deservedly considered the masterpieces of the Museum's collection and belong to riches of world art. Numerous temporary exhibitions feature works by contemporary artisans as well as the exhibits stored in the Museum's repositories.
