HERGÉ (1907-1983) Lot n° 33

■ λ Tintin in Tibet Pencil lead on paper for the preparatory pencil of plate 46 of the album. 40x29,7 cm. Casterman, 1960. For many, including Benoît Peeters, Tintin in Tibet is Hergé's masterpiece. And the master himself confessed several times his preference for this adventure. Indeed, this volume is in no way comparable to any other! One could retort: "As for all the other volumes of Tintin, all significantly different but in the same lineage." Certainly, Hergé has once again documented himself without counting the cost, but what characterizes Tintin in Tibet remains the strength of character that the young reporter shows. He no longer fights against the bad guys, against others, but against himself. Divided between his pragmatism and the feelings that inhabit him, motivated by his friendship for Chiang, Tintin has never seemed so human as in this adventure, when he is plagued by doubt and despite everything inhabited by the ferocious desire to believe in the impossible survival of his friend. The strength of these values, this humanity confronted with this division, we owe it to Hergé's feelings at that time. Divided between his wife Germaine and his mistress Fanny, the great author, still attached to his scouting values, is distraught... until he consults a renowned psychoanalyst, a pupil of Jung! He tells him about his dreams of immaculate whiteness, which suffocate him. The doctor tells him to kill the demon of purity inside him. Unthinkable for Hergé: "The demon of purity is the complete overthrow of my system of values." Finally, the best answer to his dramatic inner conflict, Hergé finds it in Tintin in Tibet. Summoned to stop working, the author stubbornly ends this inner epic: this reunion between two friends takes the form of a reconciliation between its parts that are tearing each other apart. Hergé lets this suffocating whiteness gradually invade his boards, the album becomes so personal, so intimate, that thi