LONDON.- And drawing of The little Princea watercolor by Antoine de Saint-Exupry used in the original edition of the famous tale, was sold Thursday at an auction in London for about $380,000, he announced Christie’s.
This 1942 drawing sold for 302,400 pounds (about $379,550), a price ten times higher than the estimate that had been made, which ranged between 25,000 and 35,000 pounds (between $31,400 and $44,000).
The watercolor, reproduced on page 59 of the New York edition, represents the Little Prince conversing with a snake in the Sahara desert. This drawing had already appeared at an auction in Sotheby’s in 1989.
“The drawings and watercolors in their final or almost complete version as reproduced in the first edition (…) are of great interest and extremely rare,” Christie’s wrote in the catalog.
Christie’s recorded a sale at Artcurial in Paris in June 2017, in which a watercolor of the Little Prince sitting in a chair and contemplating the sun sold for 294,000 euros ($317,680). Another drawing, with this character lying face down in a rose garden, sold for 226,000 euros ($244,200).
The significance of the book
The little Princea classic of children’s literature translated around the world, is the most read fiction in history.
According to the Antoine de Saint-Exupry Foundation, the book It has sold, in 80 years, more than 150 million copies worldwide.
The author, exiled in the United States during the Second World War, had responded to a request from his North American publisher who wanted a Christmas story.
The writer died at the controls of his plane in July 1944, just over a year after the French and English versions were published in New York, and he did not have time to see the incredible success of this book.
His drawings of the blonde hero, who wanders from planet to planet and meets multiple characters, contributed greatly to the popularity of the story.
FUENTE: AFP
