Could Nicola’s chandelier have been part of looted Nazi haul?
THE Scottish Government has launched an inquiry into claims a valuable chandelier in the First Minister’s official residence was looted from Nazi Germany.
The chandelier, now in the drawing room at Bute House in Edinburgh, has always been said to have been found ‘abandoned’ in the street in the North German town of Cleves at the end of the Second World War.
But a report by Holocaust research organisation the Simon Wiesenthal Centre has cast doubt on its provenance, suggesting it may have been ‘looted from the British collecting point at Schloss Celle, or it may be an object looted from legitimate German ownership’.
The Scottish Government has now called on the National Trust for Scotland, which owns Bute House, to investigate the claims after the 2008 report was unearthed by a newspaper.
It has always been assumed the chandelier was found by English interior decorator Felix Harbord, who was responsible for repatriating works of art from the Nazis.
The Bute House official guide says: ‘Har- bord came upon this chandelier abandoned in one of the streets of Cleves and had it packed in empty munitions boxes, which he addressed to No6 Charlotte Square’.
The address was home to one of Harbord’s most important clients, Lady Bute.
The four- storey Georgian house was acquired by the Treasury in 1966 from the Bute family in lieu of death duties. It later passed to the National Trust for Scotland and since 1999 has been the official residence of the First Minister.
But the report, by Irish historian Erin Gib- bons, says: ‘Harbord had established a means of removing from Germany an unprovenanced artwork by placing it in an empty munitions box and addressing it to a client in Scotland.
‘Further research is required to try to establish the origins of the chandelier.’
A Scottish Government spokesman said: ‘The report raises questions over how the Bute House drawing room chandelier came to be brought to Scotland and into the ownership of the Bute family.
‘We will discuss this with the National Trust for Scotland, to clarify if information on the provenance of the chandelier is contained in its archives.’
The National Trust for Scotland said: ‘We will pursue this with the Bute House trustees, who have been legally responsible for the supervision of the property since 1966.’
Last week, Glasgow City Council agreed to pay compensation to the legitimate owners of a tapestry in the Burrell Collection. It was acquired by Sir William Burrell in 1938, just before the outbreak of the Second World War.