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"Tower of the Koutoubia Mosque" by Winston Churchill
Photo: Kirsty Wigglesworth / AP
British Prime Minister Winston Churchill was a hardworking hobby painter - it is said that he painted more than 500 pictures in his life.
US actress Angelina Jolie wants to sell one of them from 1943.
As the broadcaster CNN reports, the work "Tower of the Koutoubia Mosque" ("Tower of the Koutoubia Mosque") will come under the hammer on March 1st.
Churchill had taken part in the Casablanca Conference in Morocco in January 1943 - a secret meeting of the anti-Hitler coalition at which the further strategic approach of the Allies in the war against the Axis powers Germany and Italy was discussed.
He is said to have painted the picture shortly afterwards in Marrakech.
The auction house assumes that the picture could be sold for the equivalent of 2.8 million euros.
Churchill had given his work to then US President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who had represented the United States at the conference.
In 2011 it came into the possession of Angelina Jolie, who now wants to auction it.
"It is the only work Churchill painted during the war, perhaps encouraged by progress made by the Allies," said Nick Orchard of Christie's auction house.
The painting was created after Churchill and Roosevelt had agreed that only an unconditional surrender of the Axis powers would be accepted.
"Tower of the Koutoubia Mosque" underlines how important the friendship between the two politicians was for the outcome of World War II, said Orchard.
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