The trusted Blake, Jacobs and Mortimer blog, that we’ve quoted before, has found some very nice Jacobs items in the catalogue of a new comics items auction due to be held on December 12th at the Coutea-Bégarie auction house in Paris. Next to a very nice large-sized sketch by Jacobs (valued at 4000 Euros), the catalogue mentions some quite exquisite vintage or limited editions of Tintin, Lucky Luke and other series, and a quite astonishing series of original sketches and pages by people as varied as Blanc-Dumont, Christian Denayer, Philippe Druillet (!), Hergé (they’re down to the smallest scraps of paper, now), Jijé, Manara, Pichard, Hugo Pratt (in colour!) and Walthéry.
Meanwhile, on BoDoï, Benjamin Roure reports of a recent similar auction at Artcurial last week, which featured pieces by stars like Pratt, Hergé and Bilal which nevertheless only met with disappointing results. One third of the objects that were put up for sale went away unsold. Speaking to the AFP agency, Artcurial comics expert Eric Leroi, thought that two years ago the auction would have made more than the 1.9 million Euros they managed to gather this year. And indeed, even though the original cover to Hugo Pratt’s Corto Maltese in Siberia (valued for 90,000 Euros) was sold for 247,000 Euros, a collection of 131 strips from The Youth Of Corto Maltese (valued at 250,000) went unsold.
(lot 202, the “Farewell Ladies portfolio” by the great Hugo Pratt; the originals may be beyond our pocket money allowance but we can at least enjoy a look at what’s on offer in the auction’s catalogue online)
(lot 395, Femme a la Fleur by the brilliant Lorenzo Mattotti)
Good prices were met for artwork by Robert Crumb, Bill Watterson or Yves Chaland, but work by younger or lesser known artists failed to interest the collectors. It would seem that the market for original comic artwork, which proved to be a goldmine for speculators, has reached its peak. Buyers seem to buy on a more rational basis, while there’s more artwork on the market than ever before. Let’s see what this means for the Coutea-Bégarie auction, or for the next Bande Dessinée themed event at Artcurial, due to take place on March 17th, 2010.
(Jacobs Blake and Mortimer: un opera de papier)
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