Auctions
Hitler Watercolor to Be Sold at Weidler
It's one of several Hitler-related items to have come up for sale this year.
It's one of several Hitler-related items to have come up for sale this year.
Sarah Cascone ShareShare This Article
One of Adolf Hitler’s artworks will be auctioned off at the Weidler auction house in Nuremberg, Germany later this month, reports the Local. The watercolor painting, which dates to 1914 or 1915, is titled the The Old Town Hall and is a depiction of the Munich registrar’s office.
Measuring just over eight-and-half-by-11 inches, the painting currently belongs to a pair of sisters from Hesse, Germany. It was first purchased from a Munich gallery by their grandfather in 1916. The auction lot will include the original bill of sale, as well as a certificate of authenticity from Albert Bormann, the brother of Martin Bormann, Hitler’s chief of staff.
In the years since its creation, the painting has traveled throughout Germany, being kept in the central state of Thuringia, and later being smuggled out of what was then East Germany to Hesse.
Bids for The Old Town Hall will begin at €4,500 ($5,600), with the sisters promising to donate ten percent of the proceeds to a charity for disabled children. They also hope to help renovate the city’s Nazi Party Rally Grounds, which are now a memorial. Though an official pre-sale estimate has not been announced, the original bill of sale is sure to boost the painting’s value, and it could easily fetch tens of thousands of dollars.
Several paintings by the German fuhrer, whose failed art career is well-known (see “From Jimmy Carter to Hitler, 10 Politicians Who Tried Their Hands at Art“), have come to market at Weidler over the years. Of the five canvases previously sold at the auction house, the most recent was purchased by an anonymous Slovakian collector in January 2012 for €32,000 ($40,000). The sale of Hitler’s artworks, of which about 800 known examples still exist, is permitted unless a piece includes Nazi imagery, such as a swastika.
Several Hitler-related items have come up at auction this year, including a signed photograph of the Nazi leader as a young man (see “Signed Photo of Hitler Heads to Auction“). In France, the government cancelled a planned sale of Nazi memorabilia owned by Hitler and Hermann Göring after protests from Jewish groups (see “Paris Auction House Pulls Nazi Memorabilia From Sale“).