ENGLAND: A painting attributed to Adolf Hitler fetches $20,000 at auction in Britain

A painting attributed to Adolf Hitler fetched 10,500 pounds ($20,000 USD) at auction in Britain on Tuesday (September 26), despite art experts' doubts that the watercolours on sale were the work of the Nazi leader. The amount was the highest among 21 watercolours and sketches said to be by him that went under the hammer in the small town of Lostwithiel in southwest England. Proceedings were briefly disrupted by renowned prankster Aaron Barschak and a friend dressed as Hitler, who protested noisily about the auction before being removed from a packed salesroom by security guards. The self-styled "comedy terrorist" caused a scare in 2003 when he bypassed security at Windsor Castle to crash the 21st birthday party of Prince Charles's son Prince William. A spokesman for Jefferys auctioneers dismissed Barschak's intervention as a schoolboy prank. The outburst was a temporary distraction for bidders who paid well in excess of pre-sale estimates for many of the works. Some media commentators have criticised the sale, calling into question the authenticity of the works and whether it was appropriate to sell paintings in the name of the mastermind of the Holocaust. Overall the sale fetched 118,000 pounds (223,636 USD), more than double the pre-sale estimate of 40-50,000 pounds (75-94,000 USD), the spokesman said. Speaking before the sale, auctioneer Ian Morris said there had been an "unprecedented amount of interest" in the auction. He added: "Obviously buyer's wise we've got bids from New Zealand, Canada, the States, as well as Europe, Russia, England, and Ireland and again we've had people here from Russia, the States, Estonia, as well as the rest of Europe and England as well, so the level of enquiries has been very high, and obviously the press coverage has been very very large." The top price was paid by an unnamed Russian businessman for a watercolour on paper entitled "The Church of Preux-au-Bois" and signed "A. Hitler". Morris explained that this was well in excess of original estimates. "The price that it went for was the last lot, Lot 22, which made ten and a half thousand pounds. I think we estimated originally in the region of two and a half to four thousand pounds." The paintings and sketches were purportedly painted when Hitler was serving in the German army during World War One and then hidden away for more than 60 years. If genuine, they would be the largest sale of Hitler's artwork for many years. But art experts and commentators criticised the auction. It is not the first time the authenticity of Hitler's work has been a bone of contention. In 1983 British historian Hugh Trevor-Roper was taken in by diaries purportedly written by Hitler that became a sensation before turning out to be forgeries. Onlookers at the auction defended the decision to go ahead with the controversial sale. Carlo Accorsi, a prospective buyer from Estonia, said: "This is not art, it's some memorabilia of a crazy person, but when he was making these pictures he was a normal young soldier, then yes he lost his brain and everything, but it's something weird, strange, something a lot of fanatical historic persons would enjoy." Mike Palmer, who himself had once owned a batch of Hitler paintings, said: "I think for most people it is the fact that it is a painting by Hitler. Hitler was not a good artist, but to have a signature by Hitler. People collect military items, people collect paintings by Churchill, you know, other great leaders have painted and there is a market for their work but I think in reality it's the fact that it's Hitler and Hitler is you know a name that conjures up a lot of emotion and there is a major moral dilemma when something like this comes to the market." The paintings of rural scenes on the border of Belgium and France were offered to Jefferys after the auctioneers sold a Hitler watercolour for 5,200 pounds ($9,790 USD) in November 2005. An elderly woman in Belgium, who wants to remain anonymous, contacted the company and offered for sale 21 works that had been found in the 1980s in an attic of a house near Huy. Two refugees from France, apparently returning home, had left a sealed box there in 1919, a year after the war ended. The box contained the watercolours which depicted scenes around Le Quesnoy, the area in France where the women had originally come from.

ITN Source | September 27, 2006

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