The press has been reporting and editorializing
about the Hunt Museum and Wiesenthal Centre of late. And although this
has been over three months since I last posted, it is exactly where I
left off.
It will be another few months until the Wiesenthal Centre's own dossier on the Hunt collection will be made public.
The Director of the Wiesenthal Centre has warned that it will be an eye opener.
PART 2 - THE HUNT FOR THE HUNT COLLECTION PROVENANCE
What has this chandelier have to do with The Hunt Museum?
"The chandelier has a fascinating history: During the last war, Felix Harbord, the interior decorator who helped Lady Bute with the arrangement her family homes, was serving in the Forces and was charged with repatriating works of art. One day, he came upon this chandelier abandoned in one of the streets of Cleves (Germany) and had it packed in empty munitions boxes, which he addressed to No. 6 Charlotte Square. She (Lady Bute) always ensured that the Drawing Room curtains were left open at night, so that passers-by could share her enjoyment in the chandelier's unexpected arrival."
(From Welcome to Bute House - the official residence of the First Minister of Scotland, and one of the finest examples of Georgian architecture in the heart of Edinburgh.)
Felix Harbord also appears in a Irish Military archive file regarding the wartime activities of the Hunts. Expert L. Nicholas writes, "The Hunt Military file also contains a letter, dated November 4, 1940/1? from John Hunt to R.A. Masters, Esq, which refers to business dealings with Felix Harbord, a decorator and dealer who worked both in England and Ireland before and after the war."
Harbord was posted as a Monuments and Fine Arts Officer at the British Collecting Point at Schloss Celle near Hanover. Some time after he left that post it was discovered that many of the hundreds of cases of recovered art objects stored in the Collecting Point had been rifled. The thefts were the subject of an investigation by the British authorities.
".. the records of this investigation and the records of the Collecting Point should be examined to see if any of the missing objects could be matched to those in the Museum. ...allegations that Felix Harbord took objects from the Collecting Point and sold them should also be documented"
By whom? Now that the press has cleared the Hunts, the will to find out the truth behind each provenance is diminished.
Lynn Nicholas examined the documents in the Irish Military File for the “smoking gun” to looted art and Nazi connections and found no hard evidence; just 30 pages of circumstantial, red flags - some of which she advised should be explored further. I am at a loss as to why the buck stopped there.
Lynn advises the continuation of research instead of undertaking it herself.
She acknowledges that the singular effort of the museum director, Virginia
Teehan was unfinished.
The existing data hardly exonerates the Hunts. Their wartime purchases still are completely and mysteriously bereft of ownership history.
As Nicholas herself writes, “For most of the objects in the collection, there is essentially no provenance at all. The lack of documentation was a matter of great concern both to the present director and to her predecessor”
And to Lynn Nicholas as well, as she implores, “Highest priority should, therefore, be given to continued provenance research” But the press missed this "Highest priority" altogether in their reporting of the case.
Part I
According to the Associated Press- http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-6957061,00.html-
The Hunt Museum in Limerick, Ireland was absolved last week of all accusations looming against it that that its founders were Nazi spies who bought art works from dealers trafficking in items stolen during the Holocaust.
Those strong allegations against founders
John Hunt
and his 
German wife
Gertrude
were first made in 2003 by the Paris-based Centre Simon Wiesenthal (CSW) in a public letter to Irish President Mary McAleese.
As a result of the highly sensitive nature of the allegations, The Irish Academy retained WWII-era researcher and writer of Rape of Europa (currently in film release) Lynn Nicholas. She analyzed the methodology of the group investigating the Hunt Museum,
responded to the criticisms of Centre Simon Wiesenthal and suggested further action in her August 8, 2007 report.
Even though the Irish Academy formally cleared The Hunt Museum with the release of Nicholas’ Report, Shimon Samuels maintains his position and is quoted as saying, that, as far as he was concerned, “The show is not over.''
What could Shimon know that we don’t know?
Didn’t Lynn Nicholas clear The Hunt Museum of doing anything wrong as the AP reported?
"This does not to me give a clean bill of health to the Hunt Museum,'' Samuels said of the report. "I do not feel the research has been exhaustive or complete, basically due to the fact that we were denied access to the archive and to the entire process.''
She did castigate the Centre Simon Wiesenthal (CSW) for several things:
In 2003, Dr. Shimon Samuels of the CSW wrote an open letter that Nicholas describes as “confrontational and personally offensive”. 
Dr Samuels suggested that the provenance of some of the material in the museum was suspect. Also, he claimed that the Hunts had links with Nazis and colloborationists dealers in art objects looted during World War II. Although Nicholas acknowledges, “the discovery of a ‘red flag’ dealer’s name associated with an art collection is certainly a valid reason for an inquiry”, she berates the tactics used in the pursuit of truth about the Hunt collection. In a scathing rebuke, Nicholas admonishes Dr. Samuels’ “sensational and calculated manner” in which he announced his suspicions.
It is her opinion, although the Hunts happen to be very close friends and business associates with notorious art dealer collaborators like Alexander Von Frey, it doesn’t necessarily prove they dealt in looted art (it was through the von Freys that Mrs. Hunt communicated with her mother, who remained in Germany during the war). Nicholas examined three letters that exposed the connection of Hunt to the Freys and while they themselves lack proof to identify specific stolen works, their existence absolutely demands the need for further research . Dr. Samuels said of the most recent report, "I do not feel the research has been exhaustive or complete."
Nicholas writes the letters do not refer to sales of works from the war, only "pre-war" transactions. But even "pre-war" may mean problematic sales/dealings if the period stems from 1933-1939; a time now acknowledged to identify the Holocaust-era as a basis for claims.
It is Nicholas' opinion that since the private and professional lives of freelance dealers such as the Hunts cannot really be separated, any information that exists on the their wartime pursuits in Irish Military Files should have been voluntarily shared.
Nicholas harshly criticizes Samuels’ for keeping back this documentation and holding it close as “challenging the authorities .. a sort of blackmail game”. The Hunt Museum Evaluation Group, on the other hand, is excused for suppressing the identical file for reasons attributable to “intra-Irish politics”. But Irish web author Sean Murphy wrote about the group,"...it seemed to the present writer that the (Evaluation Group) group was being rather optimistic in its conclusion, and had not dug deeply enough." They were certainly aware of the existence of the Military Archive file. Nicholas admitted that. But she lightly pronounced as "misguided" the Group's suppression of the contents of the Military File in its own formal report.
That report was delivered in June 2006, at The Royal Irish Academy symposium on looted art closed to Dr. Samuels and the Centre Wiesenthal. Disaster struck in the form of Irish Military file G2/4371- Mr and Mrs Hunt being publicly exposed by a museum official in the audience. It was Eamonn Kelly, Keeper of Antiquities National Museum of Ireland. Kelly also happens to be married to Erin Gibbons, the Hunt Museum art researcher, who shared her concerns about the complete lack of provenances in the Hunt Museum collection with the Wiesenthal Centre in 2003.
These concerns, coupled with Hunt Museum's unpublished scholarship which raises questions about the "dodgy" milieu of art dealings in war and post-war Europe (when the Hunt's were dealers), gave The Wiesenthal Institute the impetus to demand an inquiry.
With respect to answers, the Nicholas' Report is most interesting in that it raises even more red flags on the Collection than ever before.
But the press doesn't report Nicholas' calls and recommendations for further research. So, although the Press has cleared the Hunt Museum, research and investigation will continue... and the truth will emerge.
by Fern Smiley
My problem with provenance. 
I saw the movie A Citizen Above Suspicion years ago and have thought about the premise with respect to art confiscated and dispersed during WWII. Although it was a thriller about murder, the concept is that some of us are simply too superior in stature to be considered suspects even in the face of blinding evidence. Or, from an earlier memory, the Emporer could actually strut naked while his court of followers oohed and awed pretending to admire non- existent finery- at least until someone too young to know better told it like it was.
I feel like that young girl.
When I noticed the catalogue acquisition dates of several fine impressionist paintings coming to Canada in the summer or 1998, the purchase date of 1941 that appeared in their provenances seemed curious. In November I was following the news that MOMA in New York received claims during a visiting exhibition of pictures from Vienna. The Schieles, it was claimed, were originally from their ancestors homes and looted during the war by the Nazis. So it was with a new sensitivity, being an arts volunteer and a child of Holocaust survivors that I read the catalogue.
Pictured Above: Original Italian Poster - A Citizen Above Suspicion
