84-year-old Tintin painting expected to fetch record amount at auction

Tintin

Credit: FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP/Getty Images

A 84-year-old painting of Tintin by the Belgian artist Hergé is expected to fetch as much as three million euros at auction.  

The Belgian boy reporter is seen clutching Snowy, his faithful hound, as he hides in a Ming vase against a backdrop of a red Chinese dragon. 

The image was going to be the front cover of Tintin’s 1934 comic book adventure The Blue Lotus. A different design was chosen because it was too expensive to print. 

Herge gave the painting to Louis Casterman, the son of Hergés publisher, when he was seven-years-old. He kept it tucked away in a drawer, folded into six, which experts believe helped preserve the cover. 

Despite the mark of the fold still being visible, it is expected to break the world record sum paid for an original page of Tintin drawings, which sold for 2.1 million euros without fees in Paris in 2014. 

It is the first time the painting, which was inspired by iconic images of Anna May Wong, Hollywood’s first Chinese American star, has gone up for auction. It goes under the hammer in Paris on November 21.  

The painting is in india ink, watercolour and gouache and measures 35 centimetres by 35 centimetres. 

“This is a unique piece, and probably the most important piece of comic art from a private collection.  Eric Leroy,  the comic strips expert at the Artcurial auction house, said. 

“This artwork is a genuine masterpiece encapsulating Hergé’s genius and is probably the most beautiful Tintin album cover ever.”

The Blue Lotus is the fifth Tintin adventure and regarded as one of Herge’s best. In it, Tintin exposes drug smuggling rings and tackles spies during the 1931 Japanese invasion in China.

It is notable for its sympathetic portrayal of the Chinese, which moved away from the national stereotyping in the earlier adventures. 

This shift is credited to Hergé’s friendship with Zhang Chongren, a Chinese student studying in Belgium.