Would you pay thousands for a painting if you found out the artist was Adolf Hitler? The Telegraph reports that a watercolor painting by the German dictator will be going up for auction in Nuremburg on November 22 and is expect to bring in a “five figure sum.”
The painting is nothing extraordinary, but the Telegraph states that it will go for a hefty sum simply because Hitler painted it. Titled “Old Town Hall,” it is the fifth Hitler painting to be auctioned off at the Weidler auction house. The most recent painting was auctioned off in 2012 for $42,300.
Paintings by Adolf Hitler. pic.twitter.com/EnyX2b2mVi
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According to Deutsche Welle , 15 Hitler paintings were sold for a total of $120,000 and another group of 13 works were sold for just shy of $125,000 at a British auction house back in 2009.
The New York Daily News writes that Hitler was “more famous for evil atrocities than good paintings,” yet selling his paintings is completely legal in Germany because they contain no Nazi symbols. The Telegraph reports that the painting, sold by two unnamed German sisters, comes with a certificate of authenticity that proves Hitler was the artist. There is speculation that the painting has been hidden away for a number of years before it was put up for auction.
There are many Hitler paintings that will probably never go up for sale, or be put on public display, because they are the property of the U.S. government. Washington Post writer Marc Fisher writes that a number of the Third Reich leader ‘s works were seized by the U.S. Army at the end of World War II.
[Images: Weidler Auction House, Wikimedia]
