LAST year, I reported that £481,583 (then €573,000) had been paid at Artcurial in Paris for a coloured drawing by Hergé. It dated from 1969 and showed Neil Armstrong being welcomed to the Moon by Tintin, Captain Haddock, Snowy and Professor Calculus, who had landed there in 1950 (Art market, January 26, 2022). A year before that sale, Artcurial had taken €3.1 million for an unpublished cover drawing for The Blue Lotus.
The same auctioneer achieved a much more startling result last month with an uncoloured drawing, proving that Hergé’s own rocket is far from, the first to be printed in colour. The 1932 first edition had a small printed cover illustration of Tintin and Snowy sitting on a rock (sold for €1,338,509 in 2012), and the 1937 third edition Tintin on a horse, which was pasted onto the cover. The 1946 design showed Tintin tied to a stake and in danger of imminent scalping by a Native American in full eagle-feather headdress. The drawing, which sold for €2,158,400 (£1,893,333), was essentially a final version before colour was added. How much might the final fully coloured one make?
