Hitler painting auction draws hefty sum
A series of watercolours by Adolf Hitler were sold at a British auction house on Thursday for more than €100,000.
The 13 paintings, most of them landscapes and found in a garage earlier this year by the seller, went for 95,589 pounds (about €107,000 or $140,000) at Mullock's auction house.
An apparent self-portrait showing a man with a side-parting sitting on a stone bridge, and signed with the initials A.H., sold for 10,000 pounds at the auction at Ludlow in western England.
Richard Westwood-Brookes of the auctioneers - who had earlier said the pictures "are hardly Picasso" - said the final price, which included buyer's premium, was a surprise.
"I am very pleased. I thought they would go for between five and six thousand," he said.
The paintings date back to between 1908 and about 1914, when the former German leader was a young man trying to earn a living as an artist in Vienna.
"Unfortunately for the world, he was not accepted into the Vienna Academy, which was where he wanted to be," Westwood-Brookes said. "Of course, if he had been accepted, then we would have known him today as an artist and not as an evil tyrant."
Westwood-Brookes said the seller bought them from someone who found them in 1945.
Many of the works are signed with the initials "A.H." The sale also included a collection of official Nazi magazines for schoolboys and women, featuring knitting patterns and recipes.
In 2006, 21 of Hitler's works were sold in Britain for 118,000 pounds.
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The 13 paintings, most of them landscapes and found in a garage earlier this year by the seller, went for 95,589 pounds (about €107,000 or $140,000) at Mullock's auction house.
An apparent self-portrait showing a man with a side-parting sitting on a stone bridge, and signed with the initials A.H., sold for 10,000 pounds at the auction at Ludlow in western England.
Richard Westwood-Brookes of the auctioneers - who had earlier said the pictures "are hardly Picasso" - said the final price, which included buyer's premium, was a surprise.
"I am very pleased. I thought they would go for between five and six thousand," he said.
The paintings date back to between 1908 and about 1914, when the former German leader was a young man trying to earn a living as an artist in Vienna.
"Unfortunately for the world, he was not accepted into the Vienna Academy, which was where he wanted to be," Westwood-Brookes said. "Of course, if he had been accepted, then we would have known him today as an artist and not as an evil tyrant."
Westwood-Brookes said the seller bought them from someone who found them in 1945.
Many of the works are signed with the initials "A.H." The sale also included a collection of official Nazi magazines for schoolboys and women, featuring knitting patterns and recipes.
In 2006, 21 of Hitler's works were sold in Britain for 118,000 pounds.
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