Rare Hergé drawing for sale

Collectors will have a unique opportunity to acquire one of the highly sought-after original drawings for the Le Petit Vingtième covers, when the original illustration for the cover of Le Petit Vingtième issue 52, 30 December 1937, entitled Bonne et heureuse année 1938, is auctioned on 22 May 2011 at Rops auctioneers in Namur, Belgium.

The drawing, rendered in Indian ink and gouache, depicts all the main characters from Hergé's stories, on board a ship with a hull shaped literally as the number 1938. The characters portrayed are: Tintin, Snowy, Quick, Flupke, Police Officer 15, Jo, Zette and Jocko. The drawing is signed by Hergé in the lower right hand corner. A copy of the issue of Le Petit Vingtième is included in the lot.

Over the last twenty years no more than fifteen original cover illustrations for Le Petit Vingtième have been sold at auction. This particular cover evokes a sense of promise and future success: feelings that will certainly be shared by the highest bidder on Sunday 22 May!