John and Gertrude Hunt, with their children
Image courtesy of the Hunt Museum
Image courtesy of the Hunt Museum
John and Gertrude Hunt
The Hunt Museum is located in the old Custom House building of Limerick City. It houses close to 2,000 works of art collected by John and Gertrude Hunt during their lives.
John Hunt was born in London in 1900 and Gertrude Hartman was born in Mannheim, Germany three years later.The Hunts were antique dealers who moved to Ireland in the late 1930s. They settled in Lough Gur, Co. Limerick, where many archaeological excavations were taking place.
Their collection of artifacts grew as a result and they moved to Dublin in 1965.
Collection
The Hunt Museum
The Hunt Museum is located in what once was the Custom House of Limerick City. It was originally built in the 18th century.
Image courtesy of the Hunt MuseumThe Hunt Museum
Image courtesy of the Hunt Museum
Image courtesy of the Hunt Museum
The Hunt Museum
The Hunt Museum is located in what once was the Custom House of Limerick City. It was originally built in the 18th century.
Image courtesy of the Hunt MuseumBy the middle of the 1960s, the Hunts had quite a large collection of art items. They kept them in their home in Howth, Co. Dublin but wanted to display them in a more permanent and suitable location.
Eventually, the President of NIHE Limerick (now University of Limerick) offered to house most of the collection. The Hunt Museum was now based at Plassey and opened to the public in 1978. However, this was only on a temporary basis and after much work in the background, the museum moved to its current premises in 1997.
Works of Art
Inside the Hunt Museum
Image courtesy of the Hunt Museum
Image courtesy of the Hunt Museum
There is a wide variety of works of art on display at the Hunt Museum. The oldest pieces in the collection are taken from ancient Egypt and from Ireland's stone-age.
Paintings by renowned artists like Picasso, Yeats and Renoir are hanging next to a bronze horse designed by Leonardo da Vinci.
Also, the Treasury collection houses what is supposedly one of the thirty pieces of silver that Judas was given for betraying Jesus.