The Hunt Museum, in the elegant late-Georgian Custom House on Rutland Street, holds the private collection of John and Gertrude Hunt, two 20th-century Irish dealers who built one of the most eclectic personal collections in Europe and bequeathed it to the public on the condition that it stay together. Roughly 2,000 objects span prehistoric Ireland (gold, bronze and stone), medieval Christian art (a Limoges casket, a Synod of Whitby brooch), modern European prints, ancient Egyptian and Mesopotamian pieces, and a scatter of Pre-Columbian and Asian work.
The presentation deliberately mixes periods and cultures rather than organising by date — a deliberate choice that gives the museum its character and occasionally puts a bronze-age Irish axe next to a medieval Italian crucifix. Plan two hours; the rooms are dense and the labels are short. The cafe on the ground floor is one of the better lunch stops in town.