This is a new auction record, behind that of the “Lotus Bleu”. An original drawing by Hergé made in 1942 for the cover of “Tintin in America” was sold on Friday for 2.16 million euros in Paris, including costs. The sale on Friday evening marks a “world record for an original drawing by Hergé in black and white”, specified the Artcurial auction house when announcing the result, i.e. exactly 2,158,400 euros.
The auction remains however far from the record of 3.2 million euros held by another illustration of the young Belgian reporter with puff.
Initially estimated at between 2.2 and 3.2 million euros, it shows a great Amerindian chief in traditional dress pointing an accusing finger with one hand at a tied up Tintin, and brandishing an ax with the other. This drawing is particularly valuable because of its large size, 52.3 by 36 cm, more than an A3 sheet. “Tintin in America” is one of the greatest successes of the series, alongside “Tintin in the Congo”, “Blue Lotus” or “We walked on the moon”.
The trajectory of this exceptional piece is not known. The seller wanted to remain anonymous, and the auction house only specified that it was a Belgian collector. The drawing sold on Friday is not strictly speaking the original cover of “Tintin in America”. The album where Tintin goes to Chicago appears for the first time in black and white in 1932, with a cover where the reporter bivouacs in a cowboy costume, then another after 1937 where the hero rides a galloping horse.
Already a world record with the “Blue Lotus”
Hergé redesigned the cover in 1942, this time with the young hero attached to a totem. This image will become world famous by adorning the color version of the album, published in 1946, and constantly reissued since, in tens of millions of copies in total. This refined example of the line of Hergé, Georges Rémi of his real name, with Indian ink, graphite, blue pencil and gouache, is at the crossroads of the history of art and popular culture.
In January 2021, the auction house Artcurial had recorded a world record with the illustration project by Hergé (India ink, gouache and watercolor) of the original cover of the “Blue Lotus”. The 1936 drawing was sold for 3.2 million euros including costs. In 2016, a board of “We walked on the moon” went for 1.55 million euros. Comic book originals have attracted an increasingly large and wealthy public of collectors in recent years, which explains the soaring prices.