LIMERICK, IRELAND—The Hunt Museum’s entire collection of art and antiquities from

Carving of knights, relating to the death of St. Thomas Becket, c. 1200, walrus ivory.

founders John and Gertrude Hunt is an open book for those interested in checking its provenance. In January 2004, Dr. Shimon Samuels, a Paris-based representative of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, issued a series of press releases and letters raising doubts about the collection’s provenance. He also has claimed that Hunt and his German-born wife had “intimate business relationships with notorious dealers in art looted by the Nazis.”

In May 2005 the Royal Irish Academy appointed a group to oversee research of the collection’s provenance. In October 2005, at the Wiesenthal Center’s urging, the museum’s entire collection was posted online to facilitate restitution claims. “Over 45,000 people have consulted our Web site, and no claims have been made against any object in the collection,” says museum director Virginia Teehan, who adds the looting claims arose from “flawed information.” Samuels counters this information “doesn’t prove anything,” and the Evaluation Group’s final report—issued May 2006—was “not adequate” because it didn’t investigate alleged ties to dealers who traded in Nazi-looted art. To view the museum’s collection, visit www.huntmuseum.com.