How to Actually Identify Authentic Little Prince Illustrations
Most people buying prints of The Little Prince end up with something that looks basically fine from a distance but is nowhere near what they paid for. The illustrations Antoine de Saint-Exupéry painted himself came out alongside the book in 1943, and since then there has been a massive secondary market full of low-quality reproductions, canvas giclees, and things sold as "original vintage prints" that are from 1970s reissues. Saint-Exupéry drew about 85 watercolors for the book using whatever materials he had on hand. He worked in both New York and the South of France during the writing process. The originals are watercolor on paper, and they have specific visual characteristics that are difficult to fake convincingly because they show visible brushwork, pigment pooling, and the natural texture of the paper he used. The most famous ones are the boa constrictor digesting the elephant, the fox, the rose, and the little prince sitting on a chair looking at the sunset. Many of the actual original watercolors are held in private collections or institutions. The ones you can legitimately buy are typically museum-grade archival reproductions or, in some cases, authenticated vintage prints from mid-century editions. The market is messy and you need to know what you're looking at before spending anything substantial.
Here is the practical part that people skip. When you are evaluating a print, the first thing to check is the paper. Real watercolor paper from the 1940s has a distinct tooth and weight that modern copying paper does not replicate well. Hold it up to the light and look for deckle edges or chain lines in the paper. Most reproduction prints sold online are on thin, bright white paper that feels like standard copy paper. That alone tells you it is not authentic material from the original period. The second thing is the color fidelity. Saint-Exupéry's watercolors are pale, washed-out, and intentionally sketchy. He was not a trained illustrator. His colors are soft blues, pale oranges, and muted greens. If a print has hyper-saturated colors or sharp defined lines, it has been digitally enhanced and is not faithful to the original. I once bought what was listed as a "rare 1946 original print" that turned out to be a modern giclee with the saturation bumped up so much that the colors looked completely wrong compared to museum images. The third check is the image quality under magnification. A real vintage photomechanical print from a 1940s book will show a halftone dot pattern. If the image is perfectly smooth with no dot pattern at all, it is almost certainly a digital reproduction. Conversely, if the dots are wildly oversized and inconsistent, it may be a later cheap reprint. The original editions used relatively fine halftone screens by modern standards.
Where to Actually Get Something Worthwhile
The legitimate sources for The Little Prince Original Illustrations are auction houses like Sotheby's and Christie's when they occasionally offer Saint-Exupéry works, specialized art dealers who handle 20th century illustrated books, and museum shops that sell archival-quality prints. The Musee de l'Orangerie in Paris has sold authenticated prints before. Online marketplaces like Etsy and eBay are where most problematic purchases happen because the sellers often do not know the difference themselves. If you want a high-quality reproduction that is still affordable, look for prints from editions published by Gallimard or Reynal & Hitchcock. The 1943 English edition from Reynal & Hitchcock is the first English publication and those copies with the original plates are collectible. You can sometimes find them on AbeBooks or specialized rare book sites. Prices vary widely depending on condition. A decent copy in good condition from the first American edition might run a few hundred dollars, while damaged or later reprint copies go for much less. For a pure art reproduction rather than a vintage book, the best option I have found is the Taschen complete edition. They do a reasonably faithful job of reproducing the watercolors without oversaturating them. It is not the same as owning something from the original era, but it is closer to the actual look than most things you will find on Amazon or in a gift shop.
Get the Full Details
The One Thing Nobody Tells You About These Prints
Light exposure will ruin any watercolor, including Saint-Exupery's originals and any vintage print. If you buy an authentic mid-century print and hang it in direct sunlight, it will fade noticeably within a year. I learned this the hard way with a 1946 edition print I hung above a desk near a window. Within six months the blues had shifted noticeably. Switching to UV-filtering glass and moving it to a shaded wall stopped the degradation. For long-term preservation, acid-free framing with UV-protective glazing is the minimum standard. If you are serious about this, you also need to understand provenance documentation. A genuine vintage print should come with some form of documentation about its origin. Without it, you are just buying something someone claims is old. That does not mean every unprovenanced print is fake, but it means you have less certainty and should adjust what you are willing to pay accordingly.
