A former director of the Hunt Museum in Limerick has claimed that the museum archive is "virtually useless" as an academic record of the collection's provenance. Arthur Beesley, Political Reporter, reports.
Mr Ciaran MacGonigal, who headed the museum from 1998 to 2001, said yesterday that the provenance of significant parts of the collection "simply could not be proved" from material in the archive.
The archive will be crucial to an inquiry led by former Supreme Court judge Mr Justice Donal Barrington into allegations by the Simon Wiesenthal Centre in Paris that some of the collection may have been looted by the Nazis.
The claims about the couple who amassed the collection, the late John and Gertrude Hunt, have been vigorously denied by their family and friends.
While stating that the Hunts had exquisite taste and an uncanny ability to recognise quality in objects, he described the museum as "essentially a collection of curiosities".
He added: "It's bits of everything from everywhere and that's part of its charm and difficulty as a collection." Mr MacGonigal said he did not know whether any of the collection was looted.
Stating that "loot and museums are siamese twins" worldwide, he said the level of proof required in establishing the identity or provenance of an artefact was akin to that in the title deeds of a house.
"The level of proof in museological terms is a great deal higher than something, that even people as gifted as they [The Hunts\] undoubtedly were, would be able to determine," he said.
Asked whether he believed the Wiesenthal Centre's claims had the ring of authenticity, Mr MacGonigal said: "In truth, there's probably some level of it that is inevitable given the kind of material that is in the collection and given the lack of provenance." Mr MacGonigal said he had met once two years ago with Ms Erin Gibbons, a Dublin-based archeologist who claims to have discovered links between business associates of the Hunts and the main art agents for Hitler and Goering.
He said he was "alarmed" and "astonished" after reviewing the material produced by Ms Gibbons, who is writing a book about the Hunts. The information made him "highly nervous" about the collection, he said.
Mr MacGonigal said he had not commissioned an essay by a Limerick-based art historian, Ms Judith Hill, but was in situ when it was received in 1998.
The essay, which said the Hunts "fitted seamlessly" into a post-Second World War art market coloured by widescale Nazi thefts, was never published by the museum.
Mr MacGonigal said the essay was "entirely unsuitable" for publication in a museum catalogue because of its length. He also said he was unhappy with the level of proof offered by Ms Hill in the essay.
Ms Hill has said: "The issue of whether the Hunts were directly involved in dealing with illegally acquired objects was one that I did not confront and investigate."
This comment was made in a statement dated February 10th, which has been published on the museum website but was not widely circulated to journalists.
Mr MacGonigal said he was alarmed by a letter in The Irish Times from the current director of the museum, Ms Virginia Teehan, in which she said that none of the collection was acquired by the State.
Stating that he believed the material held by the Hunt Museum Trust was to transfer to the State in the event of the museum ceasing to trade, he said Ms Teehan failed to recognise that the museum was, "in reality, an expression of the State's interests".
Ms Teehan said this was a matter of interpretation on the part of Mr MacGonigal.
She said the State did not fund the museum in full.
Ms Teehan would not comment on the quality of the archive and said that she had not examined the archive extensively.
The museum had made every effort to provide as much information as possible about the collection, she added.
The Barrington inquiry team, whose work will be paid for by the museum, will meet for the first time next week to decide its terms of reference.