An ink illustration of China done by Hergé found a buyer in Brussels on Sunday. The new owner paid 379,502 euros, says the Banque Dessinée auction house. A comic book specialist, the Etterbeek house sold several “exceptional original pieces” on Sunday, to celebrate its 10th anniversary.
The 1938 illustration by Hergé was presented as the top piece in this birthday sale. It shows Tintin getting off a plane. He is pretending to faint, and is grabbing hold of the person claiming to be Professor Alembick’s beard to check it is real. Snowy is waiting in the background. The scene, which is from “Ottokar’s Sceptre”, was published on the cover of Petit Vingtième on the 1st of December 1938. The drawing was estimated at between 400,000 and 450,000 euros.
Among the other lots was a sketch of Spirou and Fantasio (Franquin) from “The Shadow of Z”, which sold for 64,002 euros. A copy of “Tintin and the Soviets” sold for 49,602 euros, and a “Lotus Blue” sold for 29,762 euros.
A Hausman drawing of a forest scene sold for 600% more than its estimation at 9,603 euros, Banque Dessinée has said.
(Source: Belga)
