Hergé - Lot 166

Hergé HERGÉ TINTIN Le Sceptre d'Ottokar (T.8), Casterman Original illustration for a coloring book, produced in 1944, accompanied by its certificate of authenticity. India ink on paper 17.3 × 21.2 cm (6.81 × 8.35 in.) Beautiful image created by Hergé in 1944 for a coloring book. The scene is taken from Ottokar's Scepter. Tintin passes a guard at Klow Castle, dressed in a baroque costume inspired by the Yeomen Warders, who protect the British crown. Hergé used it on the cover of Petit Vingtième no. 28, July 14, 1928. He embodies the theatrical dimension of power: a state - the Kingdom of Syldavia - attached to ritual and appearance. Tintin, slim and modern, dressed in a raincoat, moves forward with simplicity and mobility: he represents youth and the simple man in the face of the ancestral heaviness of institutions. In 1944, Hergé was still close to his friends Edgar P. Jacobs, who was his assistant, Jacques Van Melkebeke, who had been helping him with the scenarios since 1940, his older brother Paul, and the painter Marcel Stobbaerts, who was to some extent the link to the art he would seek all his life. All four appear in the reception at the home of the King of Syldavia in the color version of Ottokar's Sceptre. As the original pre-war plates of the Sceptre had been lost, Jacobs was involved in their re-creation, modernizing the pre-war uniform in the color version published in 1947. 1944 was a difficult year for Hergé: the decree-law of May 6, 1944 forbade anyone suspected of collaborating with the enemy to publish anything, which de facto prevented the publication of Tintin in the press, as Hergé had contributed Tintin to "Soir volé". Hergé's case has not yet been investigated. We know that he will not be prosecuted in the end. But the author of Tintin has taken counter-measures, and we have to eat: the reworking of his pre-war albums in color - a request from Casterman - and the hiring of an agent, Bernard Thièry, to find commercial outlets (advertising, derivative products...) for his work. So far, he has had little success. But within a few months, Hergé's situation improved. His case was dismissed, and Thiéry returned from Paris with the welcome news that Magasins du Printemps had ordered 100,000 copies of the Tintin and Snowy coloring books! This good news preceded another: a certain André Sinave was talking about launching a newspaper called Tintin. But that's another story... Didier Pasamonik