Artcurial: Saint-Exupéry portrait inscribed to Mermoz fetches €61,456

On 3 November in Paris, Artcurial sold the personal mementoes of Jean Mermoz (1901-1936), kept by his family since the aviator disappeared. A photograph estimated at no more than €3,000 went for €61,456: in this sale, a direct link to a legend counted for more than the object itself. The total passed one million euros, including a first chapter on French history.

A portrait at twenty times its estimate

Lot 198 is a 22.5 x 17 cm gelatin silver print, inscribed in French: “For my old friend Mermoz. With my deep friendship.” A French collector secured it after a fierce bidding battle. At €61,456 including fees, it fetched more than twenty times its high estimate. The text of Artcurial’s press release gives €61,720, but its results tables and the lot page show €61,456, the figure used here.

The two men met in June 1927 at Cape Juby, on the edge of the Sahara. According to some historians cited in the lot notes, the memory of Mermoz may have inspired Saint-Exupéry’s Little Prince.

The Andes coat goes to a museum

The long brown leather coat was very probably worn on 2 March 1929, during a forced landing at 2,800 metres in the Andes. Mermoz rushed in front of his aircraft to block its wheels before the precipice, and the back of the coat still bears the tears.

Estimated at €8,000-12,000, it reached €26,720. It joins the collections of the Musée de l’Air et de l’Espace, which also bought 44 other lots. The same museum pre-empted the Aviorex type 801 parachute at €13,360, its red leather stamped with Mermoz’s name in gold. Five lots were pre-empted by French national museums, a right back in the news with the Dubreuillosaurus offered at Drouot on 18 November.

Letters and papers, the real surprises

A letter from Henri Guillaumet to Mermoz dated 27 June 1930, an account of the crash described in Wind, Sand and Stars, reached €16,700 against an estimate of €1,000-1,500. The letter of 29 September 1924 hiring Mermoz at Latécoère, signed by Didier Daurat, sold for €16,032.

The widest gap in the sale, based on the prices published lot by lot, went to his military pilot’s identity card: €9,619 against an estimate of €200-300. The Luxor Goggle No. 5 goggles, estimated at €800-1,200, reached €6,012.

A €12,024 Lancel lighter and a Cartier watch

Made by the house of Lancel around 1933, the table lighter with clock given to Mermoz by his fellow pilots measures 9 x 7.5 cm. It is engraved “A notre camarade Mermoz” (to our comrade Mermoz), followed by the dates of his crossings. Estimated at €800-1,200, it sold for €12,024, ten times its high estimate.

The Cartier dress watch, in 18-carat yellow gold and enamel, circa 1920, belonged not to Mermoz but to Francisco Terry, a fighter pilot of Cuban origin. It sold for €8,016, in line with its estimate of €6,000-8,000. Next date for collectors: the Geneva sales, from 7 to 9 November.

€173,680: the top lot, far from Mermoz

The day’s highest price came in the morning chapter, De Napoléon à de Gaulle. This collar of the Order of the Holy Spirit, in gold with 29 chased and enamelled links, is one of 50 made by the house of Ouizille-Lemoine for the coronation of Charles X. Awarded to three recipients, it was bought for €173,680 by a European collector, against an estimate of €60,000-80,000.

Aviation made nearly two thirds of the total

Adding up the prices published lot by lot puts the afternoon chapter at around €669,000, with 258 of 284 lots sold, against some €340,000 and 35 of 43 lots in the morning. Aviation therefore accounted for nearly two thirds of the sale, without providing its top lot. The result remains modest for Artcurial, which reports 208.5 million euros in sales for 2025, and next to the 50 million euros of Monet’s Iris.

Information verified on 5 November 2026. Sources: Artcurial results press release of 4 November 2026, Artcurial sale announcement, sale page No. 6496, lots 198, 191, 225, 261, 323 and 23.