With the anticipated Stephen Spielberg Tintin film, illustrator Hergé is in demand.
Fans of Tintin, the Belgian comic-book boy detective, should flock to Paris or check out the website of Piasa auctioneers, which has assembled 230 items – original drawings, plates, first editions, rare objects and documents – for the “Hergé Sale” on Saturday.
Estimates range from 3,000 to 250,000 euros, and some works were unknown even to the foundation. One was a gouache of Captain Haddock, Tintin, Snowy and Professor Calculus on a beach with some surrealistically oversize seashells (below). Estimated at 50,000 to 70,000 euros, it was owned by a friend of the artist who collected sea shells.
Hergé fever, say the auctioneers, is growing with the anticipated Stephen Spielberg Tintin film, The Secret of the Unicorn, due to be released next year.
