Drawing of Tintin sells for US$1.2m
Print Edition
A RARE drawing of comic book hero Tintin by Belgian cartoonist Herge yesterday fetched more than US$1 million at an auction in Hong Kong.
The artwork is an illustration from the cartoonist’s “The Blue Lotus” book, published in 1936, which sees Tintin and sidekick Snowy the dog on an adventure in Shanghai.
It sold for HK$9.6 million (US$1.2 million) and French auction house Artcurial said it had been bought by an Asian collector.
Drawn in monochrome, it shows Tintin being pulled along a street in a rickshaw with a policeman looking on.
The drawing is the only original from the book to remain in private hands with the rest in museums, Artcurial said.
“‘The Blue Lotus’ is considered by specialists as the masterpiece album of Herge,” said Eric Leroy, Artcurial’s expert in comic strips.
“The design and drawing of Herge had become mature ... It was also unusual to talk about China in the thirties in Europe,” he said.
The piece had been predicted to sell at between HK$8.6 million and HK$13 million.
The record for a Tintin piece was set by a 1937 comic strip sold at an auction in Paris in May for US$3.4 million.
It was bought by an American collector.
Despite a downturn in the Chinese economy which some fear will dent the region’s burgeoning art market, auction houses in Hong Kong say they are still optimistic that rare pieces will sell.
It is the first time Artcurial has held an auction in the southern Chinese city, which has become an art hub for Asia.
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