Original Asterix cover for auction despite legal challenge

Agencies | Brussels                                                      

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com

An original cover painting from the 1963 comic book Asterix and Cleopatre was to go under the hammer on Sunday despite a legal challenge from the artist’s daughter.

The famous gouache, showing a reclining ancient Egyptian ruler and the two Gaulish heroes Asterix and Obelix was to be sold by the Brussels auction house Millon.

Measuring 32 by 17 centimetres, it is expected to fetch between 400,000 and 500,000 euros -- but the sale was almost blocked by the daughter of the late French illustrator Albert Uderzo.

Sylvie Uderzo argued that if her father had given the painting away he would have signed and dedicated it, and thus the painting must have been stolen.

Millon insists that it is selling the work on behalf of the son of a man who was given it more than 50 years ago by Uderzo, the co-creator of the Asterix series who died in 2000.

The daughter lodged a complaint with Belgian prosecutors on November 27 but, according to a letter seen by AFP, they found no grounds to suspect a crime had been committed.

Sylvie Uderzo’s lawyer Orly Rezlan had warned that any buyer of the cover painting could be prosecuted for receiving stolen goods, an idea rejected by the auctioneers.