Installed in a black painted and glass mounted frame, 15 inches tall by 18 1/2 inches wide, with a smooth white matte, the oil on cardboard painting has visible dimensions of 11 1/2 inches tall by 13 5/8 inches wide, depicting a set of two vases, one thin and made of glass and the other shorter and black, loaded with an assortment of flowers. The glass vase is filled with blue flowers (possibly iris) with yellow flowers (possibly daffodils) arranged around the base, the black vase holding red and pink flowers, with another grouping of yellow flowers above and behind the red and pink grouping, suggesting a third vase not visible in the painting. On the left side of the bottom edge is the signature "A.Hitler". A resident of Vienna, Austria after leaving his parent's home, Hitler was twice rejected from the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts (1907 and 1908); while his landscapes and still life work was acceptable, his work with the human form was much weaker; his portfolio was described as containing "too few heads", and the young man was advised to pursue architecture. Unable to get into an appropriate school with his academic record, Hitler stuck it out in Vienna until 1913, continuing to paint less for art's sake, but purely as a source of income, in some cases resorting to trading them directly for needed things. The hard years in Vienna are considered a major influence on the future Fuehrer, with some attributing his anti-semetisim (common in Europe at the time, but not to the level of genocidal mania seen in Hitler) to dealing with the poor of the city, and speculating that his patronage of the young architect turned war production czar Albert Speer was a form of wish fulfillment, seeing a bit of his younger self in the man. With Hitler's entry into politics and the rise of the National Socialists, his old art made a rise in the collector's market, as well as a rash of "previously unknown Hitler originals" put out by artists with more expenses than scruples. Working out of the National Socialist Central Archives, a crew of Nazi researchers was tasked to seek out and recover the art bearing the Fuehrer's name. Hitler, in an odd fit of personal honesty, was aware that most of his Vienna output was sub-par, and once the specialists vetted the clear fakes he examined the art personally, ordering many of his own works destroyed instead of allowing them into public view. The originals that passed muster then became gifts for people Hitler favored; Hitler originals have been documented to high ranking Party members, staff who worked closely with Hitler, and prominent civilians in the Third Reich. The path this particular piece took from Hitler to the modern era is unknown, though it is formerly of the collection of William Rasmussen, a noted Nazi artifact collector who at his peak possessed twenty Hitler originals. This particular example was examined by Peter Jahn, a former member of the National Archives art crew, who made a statement that the piece was an original Hitler artwork, likely from 1912 or 1913, the tail end of the Vienna years. A photocopy of Jahn's statement (German, untranslated) is included, as well as a brochure for Rasmussen's Historical Shop/War Museum and a catalog from the liquidation of Rasmussen's collection, with this painting listed on page 4 among other floral still life paintings and architectural watercolors.

The painting is very good*, retaining bright color overall, showing no obvious staining or damage, and generally having been very well preserved. The matting shows a small dark stain near the upper right corner, and the frame shows some light tape residue on the glass and a few scuffs and dings on the wood. *NOTE: This is purely a statement on the physical condition of the item, not an assessment of its technical, artistic, aesthetic, or moral elements. Whether this is a "very good" painting by any other standard of measurement is entirely up to the individual viewer.