JUILLARD - Lot 90

JUILLARD ANDRÉ JUILLARD FEATHER IN THE WIND Beau-Ténébreux (T.3), Dargaud 2001 Original cover. Signed. India ink and colored inks on paper 30.5 × 40 cm (12.01 × 15.75 in.) One of the few covers still available by André Juillard for Plume aux vents, the spin-off from Les Sept Vies de l'Épervier, in which Ariane recovers a little from her chaotic adventures with her Amerindian friends. There's a kind of strangeness about this cover, where the protagonists are in profile as in an Egyptian fresco, looking off-camera, archers pausing to wait before moving on to the next challenge. There's also an interesting contrast between Ariane, who has all the makings of a "tomboy", and this virile but slightly androgynous young Indian. The drawing is dazzlingly sharp and delicately modeled. It's splendors like these, both traditional and innovative, that make André Juillard one of the great masters of Ligne claire.