Hergé's original cover art for the 1942 Tintin book The Shooting Star is expected to sell for as much as $2.9 million when it goes up for auction at the Brussels Antiques and Fine Arts Fair, which kicks off Saturday in Belgium.

It's a hefty sum that could rival the record price paid in May for an original double-page spread created by the Belgian artist for the inside covers of Tintin books published between 1937 and 1958. Another drawing of Tintin, created by Hergé in 1939 for the cover of the weekly magazine Le Petit Vingtième, sold last month for $670,000.

Agence France-Presse notes that the Shooting Star cover was one of just five that remains in the hands of private collectors. Most of  Hergé's work is held by Moulinsart (aka the Hergé Foundation), the Brussels-based organization establshed in 1987 by the cartoonist's widow Fanny Rodwell. The foundation oversees the Hergé estate as well as the Hergé Museum outside Brussels.

The 10th volume of The Adventures of Tintin, The Shooting Star follows Tintin, his faithful dog Snowy and his friend Captain Haddock as they take part in a scientific expedition to the Arctic Ocean to find a meteorite before it's uncovered by a rival team.