Last week we posted a first article based on a few pictures that were sent to the family De Moor by Swiss Bob De Moor fan Thomas Brügger. We’ll present 4 of these pictures. Today we serve you the second picture which shows Bob De Moor in a rather unusual posture in his home in Ukkel at the Square Coghen. And again some details reveal a bit a more than what you see on first sight.

A picture taken of Bob De Moor in front of the model of an English merchant brig from 1850.
A picture taken of Bob De Moor in front of the model of an English merchant brig from 1850.

The picture you see here was also taken on July 20th, 1989. Some readers who also have the book “Bob de Moor. 40 ans de bandes dessinées, 35 ans aux côtés d’Hergé” will without any doubt recognize the model of an English merchant brig from 1850 which was also featured on a photo on page 72 of said book. A brig was a sailing vessel with two square-rigged masts. During the ‘Age of Sail’, brigs were seen as fast and maneuverable and were used as both naval warships and merchant vessels. In the picture we show you here you can also see the front of the sailing vessel which was not visible in the Lombard published Bob De Moor biography.

A wine vignette drawn in 1986.
A wine vignette drawn in 1986.

You can also see Bob De Moor standing in front of the vessel apparently doing a captain Haddock aka pretending to empty a bottle of wine. The bottle of wine looks like the “Chai de Bordes” from 1986 which had a drawing – a ‘vignette’ – featuring Barelli (thanks to Alain Demaret for the scan). You can see an example of the vignette on the left. It shows Barelli with a castle in the background. It’s obviously not the Moulinsart castle. You’ll also notice the bandage around Bob De Moor‘s left arm which was heavily bruised after slipping and consequently falling from an embankment during a holiday at the Belgian coast, in Knokke to be precise.

Although it’s not really easy to see what is in the bookcase, you can differentiate 3 Rombaldi volumes, 2 of which are presumably the Monsieur Tric / Balthazar volume and the Barelli volume. The 3rd volume is probably the Lefranc volume featuring the “Le repaire du loup” album next to “La grande menace”, “L’ouragan de feu” and “Le mystère Borg”. You can also recognize the complete Brabantia Nostra series (6 volumes) on the right. We’ll be talking more about the library from Bob De Moor in later posts.

In front of Bob De Moor on the small table you see a few albums from Cori, Johan et Stephan and Barelli (you know which ones?). All of the albums on the picture are probably in french. They are hardcovers, flemish albums usually had a soft cover (except for a few very limited editions and the Dutch version of the Barelli album “Le Seigneur de Gonobutz”). On the left you see what looks like a reproduction of the pencilled frontcover of the commissioned “Een Afspraak in 2009” album.

Tomorrow we’ll present you a cartoon from the De Moor archives, which many will never have seen before.

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