“The Museum of Ethnography and Artistic Thought of the Institute of Ethnography of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine is the only museum of ethnography in Ukraine, subordinated to the Institute of Ethnology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine.

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The State Museum of Ethnography and Art Craft of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR in Lviv was established in 1951 on the basis of the Museum of Ethnography of the Lviv Branch of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (former Museum of NTSH) and the Lviv State Museum of Art Industry (former City Museum of Artistic Craft), replenished in 1940 year collections of nationalized former public and private museums (National Museum, Museum named after him). Lyubomyrsky, the museum named after him. Didushitsky, Vasyliyanok Sisters Female Gymnasium, ethnographic collection of O. Prusevich).

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Purposefully for the Museum of Ethnographic Things in 1891, a room was built on 24 Svobody Avenue. The collections of the Lviv City Museum were placed there. Since 1939, the museum institution has been called the Museum of Arts and Crafts. In the post-Soviet period in 1951, the Museum of Arts and Crafts was evicted from the premises taken by the newly created Museum in Lviv by V. AND. Lenin. At the same time, in 1951, all the collections of the Museum of Arts and Crafts were transferred to the premises of the former Galician Savings Bank (15 Svobody Avenue), created once by the famous Lviv architect of the historical era Julian Zakharevich (1837—1898), author of Lviv Polytechnic, Synagogue in Chernivtsi, the castle of Count Adam Golukhovsky in the city of Husyatyn.

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Since then, the modern Museum of Ethnography and Art Craft and is located in the building of the former Galician credit card.

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The building stands out for its romantic interpretation of Neo-Renaissance and Neo-Baroque motifs. The architect and builders actively used the textural features and color of the available materials: polychrome Nadrhino brick, hewn Ternopil stone, majolic reliefs and metal forged grates produced by Jan Dashek's factory. The lobby, lined with polychrome tiles, decorated with colored stone panels and stained glass windows of the company Tiroler Glasmalerai from Innsbruck, was brightly and expressively decorated. The interiors and facade of the building are decorated with works from the sculpture workshop of Leonard Marconi. The building is completed by a dome with a spire; at the base of the dome is an allegorical sculptural group, which symbolizes the economic prosperity of Galicia.

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The exposition is divided into two sections: ethnographic (more than 44,000 exhibits) and artistic crafts (more than 28,000 exhibits).

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One of the most numerous in the collection of the museum is the collection of Ukrainian folk clothing.

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For a long time, the Museum of Ethnography and Art Craft in Lviv was the only museum on the territory of Ukraine where Coptic fabrics were kept - the products of the first Christians of Northern Egypt, which preserved the basics of the language of the ancient Egyptians. Only the National Museum of Art named after Bohdan and Varvara Khanenkov in Kyiv has a meager amount of Coptic fabrics.

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Unique in the territory of Ukraine was also an impressive collection of furniture, the production period of which spanned six hundred years (from the XV to the XX centuries).

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When creating the collections, attention was paid to the collection of purely Ukrainian materials — ceramics of local centers, weaving, embroidery, sewing, etc. For the collection of new exhibits, they use both the usual expeditions around the villages and the events of the artistic life of the region, for example, cultural and folklore events on the Singing Field in the city of Ternopil.

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The museum published “Materials on Ethnography and Art Studies” (1955—1963), albums (folk clothes, carvings, etc.) and individual works (K. Mateiko “Folk ceramics of the western regions of the USSR XIX—XX centuries”, V. F. Rozhankivskyi “Ukrainian Art Glass”, L. Sukha “Artistic metal products of Ukrainians of the Eastern Carpathians”, A. Budzan “Wood Carving in Western Regions of Ukraine”, Ya. Zapasko “Ornamental design of the Ukrainian manuscript book”, I. Seniv “Creativity of O. L. Kulchitskaya”, etc.), arranges periodic exhibitions, since 1955 has a permanent exposition “Life of the Ukrainian people” from the 16th century.

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In 1976, the “Art” publishing house released an album of 400 color and black and white illustrations representing masterpieces of Ukrainian decorative arts, collected in MEHPIN.

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Album “Treasures of the Museum of Ethnography and Art Craft of the Institute of Ethnology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine”. Authors Stepan Pavlyuk and Roman Chmelyk. — Lviv: Institute of Ethnography of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, 2005. 228 p.”

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