Original cover illustration by Thomas Taylor for Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (1997) is expected to break auction records at Sotheby’s on June 26.
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Original cover illustration by Thomas Taylor for Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (1997) is expected to break auction records at Sotheby’s on June 26.
Sotheby’s
The cover of the book that introduced readers around the world Harry Potter expected to break auction records next month.
Last week, Sotheby’s announced the June 26 auction in New York of Thomas Taylor’s original watercolor illustration for the first edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. Published by Bloomsbury in 1997, the title launched the popular series of seven books.
In a statement shared with NPR, the auction house said the artwork is expected to sell for between $400,000 and $600,000 — a record estimate for any price. Harry Potter-related material never offered at auction.
With more than 500 million copies sold worldwide in 80 languages, the Harry Potter the series have become a global phenomenon.
Taylor’s illustration – which depicts the young wizard with his round glasses and lightning bolt-shaped forehead scar boarding the train to Hogwarts from platform 9 3/4 at King’s Cross station – was nominated for the first time at auction at Sotheby’s in London in 2001, according to the statement. At that time there were only four publications Harry Potter books, but Pottermania was already taking hold: the work of art sold for a record 85,750 pounds.
Sotheby’s said it expects the artifact’s return to auction to be exponentially better this time around, as the appetite for Potter-related fare has only increased over the past two decades with the release of hit films and various spin-offs. In 2021, an unsigned first edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone sold for $421,000 at Heritage Auctions in Dallas – the current record for a Harry Potter-linked item.
Richard Austin, global head of books and manuscripts at Sotheby’s, said in a statement that Taylor’s work “served as a visual model for the young wizard who has since inspired millions around the world.”
A beginner’s mission
This document from Christie’s shows the cover of JK Rowling’s first novel. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.
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This document from Christie’s shows the cover of JK Rowling’s first novel. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.
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Illustrator Taylor was a 23-year-old art school graduate when he was commissioned by Bloomsbury to create a cover illustration for a children’s fantasy book by the then-unknown author JK Rowling.
It was the artist’s first professional mission. According to Taylor, he wasn’t given much creative freedom.
“I was actually asked to paint this scene by the editor of Bloomsbury, who said, ‘Could you please paint Hogwarts at King’s Cross Station and Harry approaching the Hogwarts Express ? “Taylor said in a 2022 video interview for JK Rowling’s online fan community, The Rowling Library. “I was very new and just starting out, so I didn’t think I could say, “No, I think it should be something different.” So I was just doing what I was told, really.”
He read Rowling’s manuscript on the train after that meeting – one of the very first people to do so.
“It was a stack of paper. It was only printed on one side. Chapter 11 wasn’t there, because the author was changing something, so chapter 11 was missing. And it also had some notes and stuff, so it was a very, very early impression,” Taylor said. The Rowling Library.
After delivering his painting to the publisher, Taylor said that for a few months he used the blank underside of each page of the manuscript to draw. “And then I think I put the rest in the recycling bin,” he said. “Of course, now I really regret it.”
Shared feelings
Taylor became an award-winning author and illustrator of children’s books. His titles include the series Strange on the sea. Bloomsbury reissued Philosophical Stone as part of the commemorative reprint of the 25th anniversary of the Harry Potter books in 2022.
But Taylor said he had long had mixed feelings about this early, giant success.
“Normally when you start out as an illustrator, you kind of hope that your first work will be kind of forgotten and then you’ll expand and get better and better,” Taylor said. The Rowling Library. “But of course, in this case, that first work has kind of followed me throughout my career. So I look at it and I’m like, ‘Why did I paint that?’ Why didn’t I paint something more exciting?”
But he said he eventually made peace with it – in part because of the value of his Harry Potter book cover painting became an auction.
“It’s quite striking when I see an auction catalogue, and then there’s a first edition of Charles Dickens, and then Beatrix Potter or something like that, and then there’s my picture,” he said. declared. “It’s fun to see it pop up in places like this.”
Indeed, Taylor’s works will be auctioned in June as part of a sale including works by literary greats such as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Charles Dickens, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Edgar Allan Poe — as well as ‘a handwritten manuscript by none other than JK Rowling.
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