JK Rowling's 1997 book “Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone” was the beginning of what would become a worldwide phenomenon. The original illustration from the first edition of the book is now for sale.
Set to sell for up to $600,000 at auction next month, it is the highest pre-sale price ever placed on a Harry Potter-related item, according to auction house Sotheby's. The watercolor cover art was created by author and illustrator Thomas Taylor.
The image shows young wizard Harry Potter – with his distinctive dark brown hair, round glasses and lightning bolt scar – ready to board the Hogwarts Express train for his first trip to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
Taylor's cover was used on several translated versions of the book, the auction house said. However, it was not used in the North American edition of the book, which was released under the title “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone”.
When the illustration was first auctioned at Sotheby's in London in 2001, it sold for about four times its estimated sale price, for a record £85,750 (about $106,000), according to a statement from Sotheby's press on Thursday.
This June, “more than 20 years later, the original illustration returns to auction poised to not only far exceed its previously sold value, but also to potentially set a new auction record for any Harry Potter-related item,” the house said. of auctions in a statement.
The record for an item related to the book series is currently held by an unsigned first edition of “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone,” which sold for $421,000 at Heritage Auctions in Dallas, Texas, in 2021, according to with Sotheby's.
Taylor, just 23 at the time, created the original cover image in two days, according to Sotheby's.
At the time of the book's publication, Taylor worked in a bookstore, where her colleagues informed customers that the local bookseller was the illustrator of the best-selling novel, according to Sotheby's. The illustration will be offered on June 26th at Sotheby's in New York along with other works of English and American literature.
The auction house will then offer one of JK Rowling's original handwritten manuscripts for her 2007 book, The Tales of Beedle the Bard, on July 10. The manuscript is one of 6 handwritten by the British author that was originally made to be given as a gift to people involved with the publication of “Harry Potter”, according to the statement. Both the illustration and the manuscript will be exhibited at Sotheby's in New York between June 21 and 25.
Source: CNN Brasil
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