Geneva (AFP)
Sketches of the Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry were found in an old building in northern Switzerland, where they had been stored by a real estate magnate among tens of thousands of works of art.
Acquired more than 30 years ago in an auction in Switzerland, the sketches were kept in a cardboard folder and "are in a very good condition", told AFP Thursday Elisabeth Grossmann, curator of the Foundation for art, culture and history of Winterthur (Canton of Zürich).
"On the other hand, many other works are in bad condition," she added, adding that the collection was stored in several parts of the city.
The cardboard contained three drawings related to The Little Prince - the drinker on his planet, the boa digesting an elephant accompanied by handwritten annotations, and the Little Prince and the fox - and a poem illustrated with a small drawing and a love letter addressed to his wife Consuelo.
As revealed by the local newspaper Landbote on Thursday, the sketches, which are undated, were made on airmail paper in Indian ink and watercolor.
The Zurich collector Bruno Stefanini, who died in December 2018 at the age of 94, bought them at an auction in 1986 in Bevaix (west). Owner of one of Switzerland's largest art collections, he founded the Foundation in Winterthur in 1980 to manage its heritage.
The Little Prince, written in New York by Antoine de Saint Exupéry during the war, and illustrated with his own watercolors, was published in 1943 in New York, then in 1946 in France, after the disappearance of the aviator on July 31, 1944 off Marseille.
The writer lived in Switzerland for two years, from 1915 to 1917, in a religious boarding school in Friborg (center).
The original illustrations of his book are held at the Morgan Library in New York.
Mrs Grossmann told the Landbote newspaper that the Foundation would contact the Morgan Library to inform them of this "find".
© 2019 AFP