The sale on Friday evening, however, marks a “world record for an original drawing by Hergé in black and white”, specified the Artcurial auction house when announcing the result (2,158,400 euros).

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.

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.

In January 2021, Artcurial had recorded a world record with the illustration project by Hergé (India ink, gouache and watercolour) of the original cover of the "Lotus bleu".

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.

Tens of millions of copies

The drawing sold on Friday is not strictly speaking the original cover of "Tintin in America".

The album where Tintin goes to Chicago and deals with the underworld appears for the first time in black and white in 1932, with a cover where Tintin bivouacs in a cowboy costume, then another after 1937 where the hero rides a horse at a gallop.

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 (1907-1983), with Indian ink, graphite, blue pencil and gouache, is at the crossroads of the history of art and culture. popular.

Shown in two exhibitions, in Paris in 2009 and in Lausanne (Switzerland) in 2010, it is "fully documented, authenticated", according to the director of Artcurial for Benelux, Vinciane de Traux.

"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 image of Tintin is tightly controlled by Hergé's heirs, who manage the work via the company Tintinimaginatio (formerly Moulinsart SA).

These beneficiaries, and in particular the Briton Nick Rodwell, husband of the widow of Hergé Fanny Vlamynck, are attentive to each auction to the provenance of the drawings.

But they didn't come forward on this one.

Hergé had never crossed the Atlantic when drawing the album where Tintin does it.

Fascinated by Native Americans since childhood, he only encountered them during his first trip to the United States, in 1971, passing through the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota.

© 2023 AFP