HITLER'S PAINTINGS

Painting reportedly made by Hitler to go on sale.

BERLIN : An oil portrait believed to have been painted by Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler of a little-known former lover will go under the hammer next week-

With an asking price of $74,000, a German auction house said on Thursday.

The 63 x 48 cm painting. signed A Hitler, 1916, depicts Charlotte Lobjoie, a Frenchwoman whom Hitler met while serving in France during World War 1, according to Werner Master, a leading Hitler scholar died in 2007.

'Portrait of a Girl' - a damaged work painted on hessian - was purchased by Flemish industrialists around 1967, auction house Weidler in Nuremberg said in a statement.

It said it had documents showing it had been exhibited at art galleries in Japan.

The painting, in what appears to be a rural setting, depicts a young woman with a red scarf loosely on her head that cats a heavy shadow over her face, and holding a pitchfork.

She is wearing a light-coloured shirt, open from the neck down. exposing part of her chest.

Maser, who was referred to by Weidler in its statement, wrote several books about Hitler, providing insight into the mind of the Nazi leader through a close look at his drawings, letters and notes.

Hitler painted for a living in the 1920s before rising to power and leading Germany into World War II.

With Soviet troops closing  in on his headquarters in Berlin, he committed suicide in April 1945.

In 2015, Weidler sold a watercolour of Neuschwanstein Castle in Bavaria that was also signed A. Hitler and believed to be the work of the former Nazi leader at an auction that fetched Euro 100,000. [Reuters].