The watercolor of the original cover of harry potter and the Philosopher’s Stonethe first image ever conceived of the ‘boy who lived’, will go up for auction in New York today Wednesday by the house of Sotheby’s. The illustration, prepared in 1997 by the British artist Thomas Taylorwill be auctioned with an estimated price of between 400,000 and 600,000 dollars (between 370,000 and 560,000 euros), thus becoming the Harry Potter item with the most expensive starting price at auction.
In 2001when only four volumes of the saga had been published, the painting was auctioned in London for £85,750 (about 100,000 euros).
Design shows a disoriented Harry Potter on the famous platform 9 and three quarters, with the Hogwarts Express behind him and a scarf in the colors of Gryffindor, the house to which the character belongs at the magic school.
This It is the first image of Harry Potter that the world sawand is born directly from the imagination of Thomas Taylor, one of the first people to read the book before its publication under the English publisher Bloomsbury.
To prove to the publisher that he had read the story, the illustrator decided to include a small clue on the cover“When you look at his scarf, you realize he’s wearing the Gryffindor colors, but on the platform he hasn’t gone through the sorting hat yet,” explains Kalika Sands, Sotheby’s international specialist in books and manuscripts.
From rejection to the global phenomenon
Although then JK Rowling’s project had been rejected by a dozen publishers, Harry Potter It ended up becoming a worldwide phenomenon that sold some 500 million copies worldwide and was translated into 80 languages.
“The saga is historical. I think the best thing about it is that there is a whole new generation of readers who continue to read it. In the years that have passed since the illustration was made, Harry Potter has created his own world“says the Sotheby’s expert.
The water-color It is part of the Rodney P. Swantko collectiona American dentist who was also a “fantastic collector of rarities” that will also go up for auction, such as some manuscripts of Edgar Allan Poe or the first edition of beautiful and cursedby renowned writer F. Scott Fitzgerald.
“The fact that he collected this kind of thing and at the same time recognized Harry Potter as something special is a true merit of his eye as a collector“, Sands says.
From your bookstore, Sotheby’s will also auction a copy of The Tales of Beedle the Bardhandwritten by JK Rowling herself, as well as one of the first 500 hardcover copies of Harry potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.
