Hitler 'self-portrait' might be fake
When a "self-portrait" of Adolf Hitler was sold amid much fanfare last month for 10 times its reserve price, the auctioneer's historical documents expert boasted about the amount of interest that it had received. The same "expert" has, however, now admitted that the painting, signed "A. Hitler 1910", might be a fake after Mandrake pointed out to him that it was, in fact, likely to be a painting of Clapper Bridge on Dartmoor.
"It's impossible to know exactly if they are genuine," says Richard Westwood-Brookes, of Mullocks auction house, which sold the picture for £10,000 along with 12 other watercolours that it claimed were by the Nazi leader. "It's like if someone gave you a piece of wood and said 'this is from the Battle of Trafalgar', you wouldn't be able to tell 100 per cent if it was. You can never be entirely sure. Nobody came forward despite a huge amount of publicity before the sale to say that the paintings were fake."
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"It's impossible to know exactly if they are genuine," says Richard Westwood-Brookes, of Mullocks auction house, which sold the picture for £10,000 along with 12 other watercolours that it claimed were by the Nazi leader. "It's like if someone gave you a piece of wood and said 'this is from the Battle of Trafalgar', you wouldn't be able to tell 100 per cent if it was. You can never be entirely sure. Nobody came forward despite a huge amount of publicity before the sale to say that the paintings were fake."