Tintin Forums

Hi-
The auction catalog shows only some of the lots to be auctioned. Anyone know how to view the lots not depicted in the catalog short of viewing the lots in person (impossible for me)?

I sent an email to the auction house using the email address they provided, but have not received a response. Any information appreciated. Thanks!

I've been able to use a link on the Artcurial web-site page for the auction to go to a listing of 428 lots - don't know if that is them all, but it looks like enough to be going on with!
[Broken links removed - 15/05/2023]

Thanks for this post.
It's interesting (and very strange) that there is another big Tintin auction at the Château de Cheverny the next day, on October 10!

Here's the info from the Tintin website.

And some of the more generic items appear in both auctions.

See here for a related thread I've started about the Cheverny Auction. Indeed, the auctions actually overlap since a public viewing and other events take place on the 9th.

There are a number of very interesting lots at the Artcurial auction, especially the original artwork. There's double page original ink from King Ottokar's Sceptre, which is estimated between 250,000 and 300,000 euros. There are also two original crayons from Flight 714 (both of which have rough storyboards on the back) valued at between 60,000 and 70,000 euros each. These pencil drawings are I think quite notable. Tintinologists have often complained that in Flight 714 some of the characters faces are overly expressive; showing large close-ups of their faces is not something Hergé often did in his work. Bob de Moor has been 'blamed' for this in the past, but the pencil sketches (particularly the one of Rastapopoulos having the plaster torn off his face, from page 38 of the book) shows that Hergé pretty much drew it this way. Anyhow, I digress...

As in the Cheverny auction, there's another signed first edition of Au pays des Soviets, although this is valued higher at 30-35,000 euros, and also another Cœurs Vaillants edition of Les Aventures de Tintin et Milou en Amèrique from 1934, valued less than the Cheverny copy at 18-20,000 euros.

I also saw that there are four rare mint condition Golden Press "Goldencraft" editions of Crab, Unicorn, Red Rackham's Treasure and Destination Moon, which have special hard-wearing cloth covers for use in American libraries. Some of these mint copies were being sold on eBay by the Golden Press archive just a few years ago, otherwise it's virtually impossible to find copies in such good condition.

Other items of note; a complete set of six mint condition pop-up books published between 1969 and 1971 valued at 6,500-7,000 euros. Pricey, but again virtually impossible to find in mint condition. There's also two original inks from the Flight 714 and Ottokar pop-up editions, priced at 5-6,000 euros each.

Plenty of stuff to drool over there!

I really enjoyed looking at those pdf's, the images are high quality; I especially liked the pencil originals for Flight 714.


Sorry to digress as you say, but these drawings really put a question mark over Michael Farr's assertion that Bob de Moor was responsible for a lot more than the backgrounds, and that the plate you mention on pg 38 is crude.

Mat

Plenty to drool indeed.

I'm hoping to place an absentee bid on one of the signed post-cards. Pretty meager but it's all I can afford.

Thanks for the great overview of the notable items Harrock.

Good luck with that! Coincidentally, I'm coming back from a Paris trip on the 9th. It will probably be too late to attend the auction, but I hope I can at least pick up a catalogue.


Thanks for reminding me it was Michael Farr, and it is a little unfair on de Moor in light of the pencil sketches. Flight 714 is probably Hergé's most cinematic book, full of angled long shots and close-ups, and the Studio were simply inking Hergé's pencils and adding background detail. The pencils are fantastic and show you how Hergé's 'finished' work really looked at this time.

I suppose the question is, what do you do with a close-up in Tintin? Do you get to see the skin texture, or make Tintin's eyes into huge black dots? It'll be interesting to see how they deal with that in the forthcoming films.

I note that on the pencil of page 37 (not page 38 as I earlier stated), the sequence where Rastapopoulos is escaping downhill and Allan shouts "Hey, Boss!" was originally reversed, showing them moving right to left. Maybe it doesn't flow as naturally that way round, but I know Hergé usually had things flow in reverse when the plot took a turn, a clever device.

Rastapopoulos's tree collision is a bit different, both legs wrapped around the tree, very painful! Incidentally, Allan's eyes are drawn as very large dots in Hergé's original pencil there too.

Another couple of interesting lots I forgot to mention are the full-colour cover versions of the b/w Cigars and Ottokar books, in almost perfect condition. The Ottokar is valued at 17-19,000 euros and the Cigars at a whopping 25-30,000! Of course, Hergé completely redrew the covers (and most of the two books too) for the colour edition, but the originals look very nice. The title text gets a little lost on the background, which is maybe why he redrew them, but I like really like them and makes me want to buy myself the facsimile editions that came out recently (if only I had 30,000 euros).

You make some interesting observations; I had a close look at these two pencil pages from Flight 714 and compared them closely to my French facsimile copy.
I thought that some of the pencil frames were very close to the final printed (inked) version, but other frames still needed final detail and character, especially the faces. The question that crossed my mind: was Bob de Moor responsible for taking the drawing process further or did Hergé ink these crucial details?

I always understood that Hergé himself said only he carried out the final inking of the main characters, as this was part of the process of bringing Tintin alive, and that no-one else could do this successfully.

Mat

I was in Paris last week and went to visit the auction house on one of their viewing days prior to the auction. It was at a very smart hotel on the Avenue des Champs-Élysées. Fantastic to see so many valuable and interesting Tintin items gathered together, framed on the walls and in glass cases, and it made for a very nice free Tintin exhibition for me! The catalogue is very nice too.

One of the items that caught my eye was the Tintin "Visiophone" (lot 204), basically a tall toy pay-telephone with a small 'TV screen' that shows Tintin holding a phone to his ear. With this item you could imagine you were really talking with the man himself! It would be a lovely thing to have lying around the house, assuming you have a spare few thousand euros... (it sold for 3,128 euros, over a thousand more than the valuation).

The results of the auction can be seen at the Artcurial site here (select the 9th of October sale, and it also helps to view by prices and description). The auction generated 1,287,498 euros in total. The highest valued item was the original ink double page of King Ottokar's Sceptre which sold for 307,785 euros.