Hunt Museum

Visit: Hunt Museum, The Custom House Rutland St., Limerick Ireland

The Hunt Museum is a veritable cabinet of curiosities. A diverse and fascinating collection of antiquities alongside fine and decorative art, housed in one of Limerick’s iconic buildings, The Custom House.

It is one of the greatest private collections in Ireland, with objects dating from the Neolithic Period to the 20th century. Artefacts on display come from Greece, Rome, Egypt and the Olmec civilisations with an important collection of Irish pre-historic archaeological material ranging from Mesolithic through to the Iron Age. An impressive shield and cauldron from the Bronze Age can be seen and a set of weighty monastic bells from the early Christian period not to mention the well-known 9th century Antrim Cross.

A strength of the collection is the Irish and European medieval material, with statues in stone and wood, painted panels, jewellery, enamels, ivories, ceramics, crystal and crucifixes. 18th and 19th century decorative arts get an airing with fine examples of silver, glass and ceramics. Artists’ works in the collection include Pablo Picasso, Pierre Auguste Renoir, Roderic O’Conor, Jack B. Yeats, Robert Fagan and Henry Moore.

The Collection reflects the tastes and interests of the two people who formed it, John and Gertrude Hunt. The Hunts built a thriving business supplying museums and collectors, but also kept pieces that reflected their own interests and curiosity and donated them to the people of Ireland.

If you are interested in Irish Contemporary Ceramics there is a superb collections with works from Frances Lambe, Henry Pim and Christy Keeney to name but a few.

The museum also has paid temporary exhibitions such as the current Lavery & Osborne: Observing Life. Two Irish 19th century artists influenced by plein air and naturalist movements, painting the great and the good from Hazel Lavery to Queen Victoria as well as beautiful genre scenes.