".The National Trust for Scotland said the chandelier and the contents of the property were gifted some 50 years ago.It said it was unclear how much information could be gained on the provenance of the chandelier.A statement said: "We will pursue this with the Bute House trustees, who have been legally responsible for the supervision of the property since 1966. MFR 2 is part of Planet Radio. Alongside two other offices at Holyrood and at St. Andrew's House, Bute House also has a smaller office used by the First Minister when in official residence. These are external links and will open in a new window.An inquiry has begun into whether a chandelier in the first minister's official residence was looted by Nazis during World War Two.The drawing room chandelier is said to have been found in 1945, abandoned in a street in northern Germany.However, a report by Holocaust research organisation the Simon Wiesenthal Centre casts doubt on its provenance.The Scottish government is now making inquiries with the National Trust for Scotland, which owns Bute House.The four-storey Georgian house at 6 Charlotte Square, in the heart of Edinburgh, was acquired by the Treasury in 1966 from the Bute family in lieu of death duties.It passed to the National Trust for Scotland and since 1999 has been the official residence of the First Minister of Scotland.According to a 2012 Scottish government guidebook, the elaborate drawing room chandelier was found in the German town of Cleves by English interior designer Felix Harbord who helped Lady Bute with the decoration of her family homes.It said: "One day he came upon this chandelier abandoned in one of the streets of Cleves and had it packed in empty munitions boxes, which he addressed to No 6 Charlotte Square.

6 Charlotte Square", home of his client Lady Bute.However, 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 report, written by Irish historian Erin Gibbons, states: "A number of matters arise from the chandelier affair. Bute House is owned by the National Trust for Scotland and the cost of the annual lease paid to National Trust for Scotland is £70,000 per year plus VAT. Located at 6 Charlotte Square in the New Town, it is the central house on the north side of the square, and was designed by Robert Adam. ".However, it has emerged that a 2008 report by the Simon Wiesenthal Centre is sceptical about the account, 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".By the late summer of 1945, all the looted works of art that had been retrieved in the British zone of occupation were transferred to a permanent collecting point at Schloss Celle, near Brunswick.A Scottish government spokeswoman said it would try to clarify the previous ownership of the chandelier.She said: "The Simon Wiesenthal Centre 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. "Further research is required to try to establish the origins of the chandelier in question. "Provenance researchers will undoubtedly be interested to establish whether the chandelier is the only object that Harbord removed from Germany in this way, or whether there were others.

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