Light in Dark Times

The Museum Schnütgen is exhibiting a precious selection of stained glass from the Khanenko Museum in Kyiv (Kiev), which will be on display outside Ukraine for the first time. They will be displayed in dialogue with stained glass from the Museum Schnütgen in the stained glass exhibition space.

The exhibition focuses on around 30 works from both museum collections. A total of twelve stained glass paintings, produced in glass workshops in France, Austria, Germany and the Netherlands between the 13th and 17th centuries, have been loaned to Cologne from the Khanenko National Museum. This is the entire collection of the Museum in Kyiv, which is to be conserved and restored in Cologne with the help of the cathedral workshop (Dombauhütte).

The reason for the exhibition is the threat of loss of many works of art due to the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine, which began in 2022. The Khanenko National Museum in Kyiv, whose beginnings date back to around the same time that Alexander Schnütgen assembled his medieval collection in Cologne, was already damaged by a missile strike in the immediate vicinity in the first year of the war. Many works of art were saved just in time, including the high-calibre stained glass collection, which is particularly vulnerable to damage though intense vibration.

In December 2024, the stained glass from Kyiv arrived safely in Cologne after being transported through the war zone. The workshad previously been secured and packed in Ukraine by a team of experts from the Corpus Vitrearum Germany.

The exhibition project also includes the scientific examination and discussion of the glass paintings in Kyiv, which have hardly been researched to date, in a digital publication.

The exhibition is not only a contribution to the rescue of European cultural assets, but also a sign of solidarity and support.

The exhibition is supported by: