THE fake news—les infox —that Neil Armstrong was the first man to walk on the moon was vigorously refuted on November 20 at the Artcurial sale in Paris devoted to the World of Hergé. Proof positive was the original 10¼in by 11½in ink, ecoline and watercolour drawing showing that the American astronaut was welcomed to the Moon by Tintin, Capt Haddock, Snowy and Prof Calculus, who had first landed there in the 1950s (Fig 1). As it was drawn by Hergé in 1969 at the time of the Apollo 11 mission, who could doubt that it was true?
The price of €573,000 (£481,583), a European record for a coloured Hergé drawing, provides further support for this view. What is not explained (although it may be in one of the books, Destination Moon and Explorers on the Moon, which I have not read for a while) is how Calculus had managed to produce a welcoming bunch of roses.
Artcurial, incidentally, has an almost familial connection to Hergé. It is part of the Dassault industrial group and is based in the former townhouse of the eminent aircraft designer Marcel Dassault; he appeared as the manufacturing tycoon Laszlo Carreidas in Flight 714 to Sydney and in the unfinished Tintin and Alph-Art.
Given the splendour of its Monaco premises, Artcurial had no need to remodel itself during the various lockdowns, unlike the Drouot auction hub in Paris, which took the opportunity for a thorough overhaul of its tired sale rooms and warehousing.
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der January 26, 2022-Ausgabe von Country Life UK.
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Diese Geschichte stammt aus der January 26, 2022-Ausgabe von Country Life UK.
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Save our family farms
IT Tremains to be seen whether the Government will listen to the more than 20,000 farming people who thronged Whitehall in central London on November 19 to protest against changes to inheritance tax that could destroy countless family farms, but the impact of the good-hearted, sombre crowds was immediate and positive.
A very good dog
THE Spanish Pointer (1766–68) by Stubbs, a landmark painting in that it is the artist’s first depiction of a dog, has only been exhibited once in the 250 years since it was painted.
The great astral sneeze
Aurora Borealis, linked to celestial reindeer, firefoxes and assassinations, is one of Nature's most mesmerising, if fickle displays and has made headlines this year. Harry Pearson finds out why
'What a good boy am I'
We think of them as the stuff of childhood, but nursery rhymes such as Little Jack Horner tell tales of decidedly adult carryings-on, discovers Ian Morton
Forever a chorister
The music-and way of living-of the cabaret performer Kit Hesketh-Harvey was rooted in his upbringing as a cathedral chorister, as his sister, Sarah Sands, discovered after his death
Best of British
In this collection of short (5,000-6,000-word) pen portraits, writes the author, 'I wanted to present a number of \"Great British Commanders\" as individuals; not because I am a devotee of the \"great man, or woman, school of history\", but simply because the task is interesting.' It is, and so are Michael Clarke's choices.
Old habits die hard
Once an antique dealer, always an antique dealer, even well into retirement age, as a crop of interesting sales past and future proves
It takes the biscuit
Biscuit tins, with their whimsical shapes and delightful motifs, spark nostalgic memories of grandmother's sweet tea, but they are a remarkably recent invention. Matthew Dennison pays tribute to the ingenious Victorians who devised them
It's always darkest before the dawn
After witnessing a particularly lacklustre and insipid dawn on a leaden November day, John Lewis-Stempel takes solace in the fleeting appearance of a rare black fox and a kestrel in hot pursuit of a pipistrelle bat
Tarrying in the mulberry shade
On a visit to the Gainsborough Museum in Sudbury, Suffolk, in August, I lost my husband for half an hour and began to get nervous. Fortunately, an attendant had spotted him vanishing under the cloak of the old mulberry tree in the garden.
