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Lviv / Ukraine

Lviv ; Old East Slavic: Львігород; Polish: Lwów [lvuf] ; Yiddish: לעמבערג‎‎, romanized: Lemberg; Russian: Львов, romanized: Lvov [lʲvof]; German: Lemberg; Latin: Leopolis; Hungarian: Ilyvó; see also other names) is the largest city in western Ukraine and the seventh-largest city in the country overall, with a population of 755 800 as of 2020. Lviv is one of the main cultural centres of Ukraine. Named in honour of Leo, the eldest son of Daniel, King of Ruthenia, it was the capital of the Kingdom of Galicia–Volhynia from 1272 to 1349, when it was conquered by King Casimir III the Great of Poland. From 1434, it was the regional capital of the Ruthenian Voivodeship in the Kingdom of Poland. In 1772, after the First Partition of Poland, the city became the capital of the Habsburg Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria. In 1918, for a short time, it was the capital of the West Ukrainian People's Republic. Between the wars, the city was the centre of the Lwów Voivodeship in the Second Polish Republic. After the German-Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939, Lviv became part of the Soviet Union, and in 1944–46 there was a population exchange between Poland and Soviet Ukraine. In 1991, it became part of the independent nation of Ukraine. Administratively, Lviv serves as the administrative centre of Lviv Oblast and has the status of city of oblast significance. Lviv was the centre of the historical regions of Red Ruthenia and Galicia. The historical heart of the city, with its old buildings and cobblestone streets, survived Soviet and German occupations during World War II largely unscathed. The city has many industries and institutions of higher education such as Lviv University and Lviv Polytechnic. Lviv is also the home of many cultural institutions, including a philharmonic orchestra and the Lviv Theatre of Opera and Ballet. The historic city centre is on the UNESCO World Heritage List.

Lviv National Art Gallery

Lviv / Ukraine

Borys Voznytsky Lviv National Art Gallery , a leading art museum in Ukraine, has over 60,000 artworks in its collection, including works of Polish, Italian, French, German, Dutch and Flemish, Spanish, Austrian and other European artists. The gallery is "successor" to a Polish institution, Lwowska Galeria Sztuki, founded in 1907 as the city's municipal museum. The Provenance of its current stock comes from a multiplicity of largely Polish sources, including the early purchase by the then city magistrature of the private collection of Jan Jakowicz. The collection was subsequently expanded through donations of parts of the Władysław Łoziński and Bolesław Orzechowicz collections. In 1940, after the city of Lviv/Lwów had been occupied by the Soviet Union, the Soviet government ordered the seizure of private property. As a result, works from the Lubomirski Museum, integrated with the Ossolineum since 1823, the Borowski Library and several other private collections, are currently in the possession of the gallery. All these works were, until the 1939 Invasion of Poland and subsequent state appropriation, the property of the Polish state, private Polish collectors, and of the Polish Roman Catholic church and, arguably, remain such. In early 2005 the Lubomirski collection of 14th - 18th century European art was transferred to its new premises - the renovated Palace of Count Potocki, a former governor of Austrian Galicia. A masterpiece by the 17th-century French artist, Georges de La Tour, is on permanent display.