Chinese art collector snaps up painting by Adolf Hitler at German auction for US$113,000
All 14 works on offer, dating from 1904 to 1922 and mostly signed A. Hitler, were sold for a total of US$450,000 despite experts considering the former Nazi dictator's art to be mediocre
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A Chinese art collector was among the buyers of 14 watercolour paintings and drawings by Adolf Hitler from about a century ago that were sold at auction in Germany at the weekend for nearly €400,000 (US$450,000).
The most expensive painting, of King Ludwig II’s Neuschwanstein Castle in Bavaria - now a popular tourist attraction - went to a buyer from China for €100,000, the Nuremberg-based Weidler auctioneers said.
Other paintings sold at the auction included a view of Prague in the fog and a female nude, the German news agency DPA reported.
A still-life of carnations changed hands for €73,000.
Bidders included private investors from Brazil, the United Arab Emirates, France and Germany itself, the auction house said, without identifying the buyers.
“These collectors are not specialised in works by this particular painter but rather have a general interest in high-value art,” Kathrin Weidler, of the auction house, told DPA.
In November, a watercolour painted by a young Hitler in 1914 of the city hall in Munich sold for €130,000 at a sale organised by the same auction house.
The buyer wished to remain anonymous.
As a budding young painter, Hitler applied to the Vienna Academy of Art but was rejected. He continued to paint however, copying images from postcards that he sold to tourists.
Germany permits auction houses to sell the late Nazi leader’s paintings as long as they do not feature any banned symbols.
