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The original watercolor illustration from the first edition of “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone,” the book that made the young bespectacled wizard known to the world, sold on Wednesday for $1.9 million.
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The work of art becomes “the most valuable Harry Potter item ever sold at auction”Sotheby’s auction house said in a statement.
“The illustration was chased by four bidders on the phone and online for almost ten minutes before selling out to applause.”
The work by Thomas Taylor, who was just 23 in 1997 when he painted the iconic image of the boy with the lightning bolt scar and round glasses, was expected to fetch between $400,000 and $600,000 at Sotheby’s.
Taylor I worked in a children’s bookstore from Cambridge, United Kingdom, when Bloomsbury editor Barry Cunningham commissioned him to paint the image for JK Rowling’s book, which would go on sale in London on June 26, 1997.
According to Kalika Sands, Sotheby’s book specialist, He was one of the first people to read the book and received a first copy. of the manuscript that served as the basis for his artistic work.
“Therefore, he knew the world before anyone else and It was he who had to think about how to visualize Harry Potter”Sands explained to AFP before the auction.
Rowling and Taylor were unknown when the book was published, and few expected it to become a global phenomenon. Only 500 copies of the first edition were printed.and 300 of them were sent to libraries, according to Sotheby’s.
But the book soon became a runaway bestseller.
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Now, 27 years later, the “Potter universe” includes the Rowling’s seven original books, a blockbuster film franchisea critically acclaimed play and video game.
They have sold more than 500 million copies in 80 languages.
The first time the illustration was offered at auction at Sothesby’s in London in 2001, it only fetched £85,750, about $108,500 at current exchange rates, but only four books in the series had been published by then.
