In 1966 he retired from the Museum as curator emeritus and directed his efforts to various art-related projects and writings, in particular his translation and updating of the catalogues of Max Lehrs and the initiation, with Anthony Blunt and others, of the massive and still ongoing Illustrated Bartsch series of print catalogues.
Prominent people who attended parties at Elm Guest House are reported to have included former Liberal MP Cyril Smith and the Soviet spy Anthony Blunt.
Anthony Blunt noted that "Many of his designs – for instance the 'St Sebastian' – look in reproduction like altarpieces rather than miniatures; and to this extent his art represents the decay of true illumination".
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Blunt, Anthony, Art and Architecture in France, 1500–1700, 2nd edn 1957, Penguin
Blunt, Anthony, Artistic Theory in Italy, 1450-1660, 1940 (refs to 1985 edn), OUP, ISBN 0-19-881050-4
Professor Anthony Blunt, PhD MA FSA FBA 1945-1973 - Formerly Sir Anthony Blunt KCVO, until he was stripped of his titles after being found to be a spy.
He was one of the controllers of the British Soviet spy ring known as the Cambridge Five: Kim Philby, Donald Maclean, Guy Burgess, John Cairncross and Anthony Blunt.
Anthony Hopkins | Anthony van Dyck | Marc Anthony | Anthony Eden | Anthony Quinn | Anthony Braxton | Susan B. Anthony | Anthony Burgess | Anthony Trollope | Anthony | Anthony Kennedy | Anthony of Padua | Anthony Wayne | Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations | Anthony Powell | Anthony Caro | Anthony Bourdain | Anthony Blunt | Emily Blunt | Anthony Newley | Anthony Head | St. Anthony | Carmelo Anthony | Anthony LaPaglia | Roy Blunt | Anthony Kenny | Piers Anthony | Mark Anthony | Anthony Minghella | James Blunt |
His books include Stalin’s Gold: the story of HMS Edinburgh and its treasure, and with Simon Freeman Rinkagate: the rise and fall of Jeremy Thorpe and Conspiracy of Silence: the secret life of Anthony Blunt.
His fellow student at Marlborough College was Anthony Blunt, with whom he continued a lifelong professional friendship; he went on to New College, Oxford.
In 1976 Haskell, who often served on advisory committees for museum loan exhibitions, joined the National Art Collections Fund committee and became one of its most vocal members, defending the purchase of Poussin's Rebecca and Eliezar for the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge (the government refused to accept the painting because it had been in the collection of the disgraced Anthony Blunt).