WATERCOLOR paintings and drawings by Adolf Hitler have been sold for nearly £300,000 (US$475,291).

    A still life of carnations changed hands for £52,000 and all of the works on offer, which date from 1904 to 1922 and are mostly signed A. Hitler, sold at the auction in Nuremberg, Germany.

    The unidentified bidders included private investors from Brazil, the United Arab Emirates, France and Germany itself, the auction house said.

    The most expensive was a painting of King Ludwig II’s Neuschwanstein Castle in Bavaria, now a tourist magnet, which went to a buyer from China for nearly £72,000, Nuremberg-based Weidler auctioneers said.

    “These collectors are not specialized in works by this particular painter but rather have a general interest in high-value art,” Kathrin Weidler of the auction firm said.

    As a budding young painter, Hitler applied to the Vienna Academy of Art but was rejected. He continued to paint, however, copying images from postcards that he sold to tourists. Experts consider his work to be of mediocre quality.(SD-Agencies)