(CNN) — JK Rowling’s 1997 novel “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 on sale.
It is expected to sell for up to $600,000 at an auction next month, the highest pre-sale value ever given to a Harry Potter-related item, according to auction house Sotheby’s.
The watercolor cover was created by author and illustrator Thomas Taylor.
The image shows the young wizard Harry Potter, with his distinctive dark brown hair, round glasses and a lightning bolt-shaped scar, ready to board the Hogwarts Express train for his first trip to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
Taylor’s cover was used in several translated versions of the book, the auction house said. However, it was not used for the American edition of the book, which was published under the title “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.”
The watercolor illustration of the fictional young wizard Harry Potter in front of the Hogwarts Express train is expected to sell for up to $600,000 on June 26. (Credit: Sotheby’s)
When the illustration first came up for auction 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 press release. from Sotheby’s published on Thursday.
In June, “more than 20 years later, the original illustration returns to the auction ready to not only far exceed the value it previously sold for, but also to potentially set a new auction record for any Harry Potter-related item,” it said the auction house on release.
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 Sotheby’s.
The first edition of the 1997 book “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone,” which Taylor illustrated. (BNPS/Shutterstock)
Taylor, then just 23 years old, 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 colleagues informed customers that their local bookseller was the illustrator of the best-selling novel, Sotheby’s claims.
The illustration will be offered on June 26 at Sotheby’s in New York along with other works of English and American literature.
The auction house will then offer one of Rowling’s original handwritten manuscripts for her 2007 book, “The Tales of Beedle the Bard,” on July 10.
The manuscript is one of six handwritten by the British author that were originally intended as gifts for people closely associated 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.
