A report of Sunday’s sale in Namur from The Age:

“Tintin mania swept a Belgian auction house on Sunday with almost 600 lots associated with Herge, creator of the famous cartoon reporter, breaking national and world sales records…”

Read the full report here.

Modertor Note: Thanks for this, Rajpal! Were you the mystery buyer? ;-)
In order that we don’t get accused of piracy, it is sufficient to supply a link to, and perhaps a brief extract from, any news report or third-party source, rather than copying and pasting all the text. Web-sites owe their existence to people visiting, so it is only fair that we all help each other. Your post has been edited accordingly.

The auction receives a short mention on the BBC News site (accompanied by a few photographs):

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/8044516.stm

I notice that Tintinologist gets a link off the BBC web-site!

Slightly off topic, I also think that photograph 9, of the page displayed in the Grand Palce in Brussels, settles the question tlaloc raised here of what size Hergé worked at to get the detail in the rocket launch pad on p. 42 of Destination once and for all…! ;-)

Back at the auction, the pictures of the Emerald pencil pages are just wonderful to see - I do hope that the mysterious buyer was the museum, and that they will get put on show! There is a fluidity and warmth to them that - much as I admire the final inked art - gets lost: let’s hope that someday in the future there will be a realease of at least a couple of the albums in pencil form.

Either that, or I’ll have to win the lottery and buy me some pencil pages!

The next comics auction at artcurial - 20-21 November 2009 - includes some good Herge material.

Catalogue here:

http://www.artcurial.com/pdf/2009/1634.pdf

See especially p. 236 onwards.

Initial news:

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5j8FtHN_2HQqNlQGt0uf Ei8WURTyA

“Bandes dessinées : collection d’un amateur” 13/03/10: Coming up for sale in March - an auction of a very nice collection of BD and comic art (oh that my amateur collection ever approached this level…!), including a nice Frank Hampson “Dan Dare” preliminary page (lot 109), and two lots of Hergé art (lots 117 & 118). You can find a link to the catalogue at the artcurial.com site.

I have the actual catalogue from the event same great stuff in there.

PDF related to Paris May 2010 Tintin sale available here:

http://www.piasa.fr/pdf/20100529.pdf

Catalogue in electronic form available here:

http://www.piasa.auction.fr/FR/lots_list.php?saleId=14197&page=1&limit =40

The printed version is a very handsome volume - as was the last Moulinsart-produced auction catalogue for the Namur sale - both are well worth tracking down.

IMPORTANT

Catalogue now available as PDF:

http://www.tintin.com/tintin/actus/actus/001066/Piasa_fr.pdf