Tintin painting kept in drawer breaks comic book record at auction

The painting for the original cover of "The Blue Lotus" Tintin comic book (1936) is displayed before being auctioned by Artcurial in Paris

Credit: Noemie Olive/Reuters

A painting of Tintin by the Belgian artist Hergé yesterday sold for €3.2 million in Paris, breaking the record for the most expensive original comic book art sold at auction in history.   

Internet and telephone bidders battled over the 1936 image of the boy reporter and his dog Snowy hiding in a Ming vase against a backdrop of a red Chinese dragon. 

The new record, which includes fees and was set at the Artcurial auction house, is more than £2.8m. The old record was for front pages of Tintin comic books by Hergé, whose real name was Georges Remi, that sold for €2.6m in 2014.

The india ink, gouache and watercolor painting was meant to be the front cover of The Blue Lotus comic book, which is regarded as one of Hergé’s best, but was ditched after proving too expensive to print in large volumes.  

Hergé gave the painting to Louis Casterman, the son of his 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, and his heirs put it up for auction. 

The mark of the fold is still visible on the 35 centimetre by 35 centimetre painting, which was inspired by iconic images of Anna May Wong, Hollywood’s first Chinese American star, and measures 35 centimetres by 35 centimetres. It was estimated to reach between €2.2m and €2.8m and sold at €2.6m not including fees. 

The bidding was tinged with controversy after Briton Nick Rodman, who runs the intrepid Belgian hero’s heritage business, said the work belonged in the Tintin museum in Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium.  It was sold to an unidentified private collector.

Mr Rodman, 68, who is married to Hergé’s widow Fanny Vlamynck, told Le Monde, “I’m not saying it was stolen by Casterman. It was just not returned by Casterman.”

“The comic strip, through the great Hergé, proves that it is an art in its own right, with some works capable of competing with the greatest painters and artists,"  Numa Sadoul, author of Tintin et Moi, told the Le Figaro newspaper after the auction.

The Blue Lotus is the fifth Tintin adventure and pits the boy reporter against spies and smuggling rings during the 1931 Japanese invasion in China.