Catherine Hickley: The Art Newspaper
Family-owned Auktionshaus Weidler perches on a cobbled street that winds uphill to Albrecht Dürer’s home and the medieval castle of Nuremberg. In the basement auction room, crammed with a haphazard assortment of chandeliers, paintings, furniture, clocks and silver, Kathrin Weidler called out bids in rapid fire on a Saturday in February.
The lots on offer were mostly humdrum furnishings cleared from the homes of the dead: lamps, carpets and oil paintings in varying conditions, unwanted by the heirs. Some sold for as little as €20 apiece.
It was almost a routine auction. But two days earlier, on 7 February, law enforcers had seized 63 paintings and drawings attributed to Adolf Hitlerfrom Auktionshaus Weidler on suspicion they were forgeries. Twenty-six of those works had been destined for the Saturday auction. …Read More
Image: Village by a Mountain Lake, signed A. Hitler, was not among the works seized from Weidler as suspected forgeries. It is still seeking a buyer. Auktionhaus Weidler