Tintin Forums

In The Secret of 'The Unicorn", Captain Haddock rips through the painting of his ancestor, yet in Red Rackham's Treasure, and for the rest of the series, the painting is intact.
Did Haddock have replicas? Or did Haddock's vain ancestor bequeath one of three paintings to each of his son, then Haddock collected them all and stored them in his closet?

I'd always assumed that there was only one painting, which Haddock got someone to repair after he and Calculus bought Marlinspike. Admittedly, it would be quite a big repair and retouch job, but with his share of all that treasure, Haddock would be rich enough to employ an expert. This might lead to a rather embarrassing conversation for Haddock though:

Expert painting restorer: Goodness, that's quite a bad rip, sir. How did it happen?

Haddock: Well, I was, you know... er... acting out a pirate story, with an old hat and... um... a cutlass, and I... er... sort of got carried away. All right, I admit it: I'd had a few drinks too. You know how it is when you're acting out a pirate story.

Expert painting restorer: Yes sir.

As Balthazar says, it is most likely that Haddock simply had the one which was ripped restored - this isn't so unusual an occurence (that a painting gets torn, not that someone gets bopped on the head while re-enacting a pirate battle...!).
Famously Rembrandt's The Night Watch was slashed to pieces by a vandal in 1975, and has now been put back together so seamlessly that it is impossible to tell by the naked eye that it was ever damaged.

Also, more recently, there was this tale of what not to do when you are about to sell a Picasso for $139m...!

Update: This and other tales of artistic accidents and ineptitude here!