For the first time ever, 50 original drawings from the world-renowned comic series Lucky Luke by Belgian artist Morris are being auctioned.
Christie’s auction house announced on Wednesday that estimates per drawing range between €20,000 and €70,000.
The auction - billed for Friday - is highly anticipated as, according to Christie’s, no original artwork by the artist has ever been sold before.
The drawings by Morris (1923-2001), whose real name was Maurice de Bevere, come from almost as many different albums. They were previously exhibited at Christie’s in Brussels and Geneva.
The first Lucky Luke album was released in 1947, and more than 70 followed during Morris’s lifetime. In 2002, a year after his death, Morris’s last album was published. Since then, the series has been produced by French illustrator Achdé (Hervé Darmenton).
The first Dutch-language album, ‘Dick Diggers goudmijn,’ appeared in 1949. Since the series began, over 300 million copies of the adventures of the cowboy Lucky Luke, famous for being faster than his shadow, have been sold worldwide.
