‘Hitler’s art’ sells for £118,000
A collection of 19 watercolours and two pencil sketches said to be by Adolf Hitler sold for £118,000 – twice the estimate.
The sale, in an hotel in Lostwithiel, Cornwall, attracted bidders from around the world, reports The Times.
Five were bought by a Russian buyer in dark glasses who refused to speak to anyone apart from the auctioneer. He paid £10,500 for the most expensive lot, a painting of the church at Preux-au-Bois.
Other buyers preferred to bid by telephone, ensuring their anonymity in an auction room packed with television cameras and press photographers.
According to the story that accompanied the pictures to Cornwall, they were found in a suitcase in the attic of a house in Belgium in the mid-1980s.
One buyer, a retired American professor who bid for every picture but went home with only one, said afterwards: “The colouring of the picture I bought is completely different to all the others so if any of them are fakes this is probably the one. But you know what, I don’t mind, the experience has been worth it.”
The auction was disrupted by Frank Sanazi, a Hitler impersonator, accompanied by Aaron Barschak, the stand-up comedian who gate-crashed Prince William’s 21st birthday party dressed as Osama bin Laden.
Sanazi yelled: “Six million. These aren’t Hitlers, they’re Mussolinis!” before a security guard escorted both men from the room.
Ian Morris, the auctioneer, said that the sale had almost doubled their expectations.
Source : Ananova
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