NEW YORK.- The illustration that defined the image of Harry Potter in the first volume of the saga written by the then unknown J.K. Rowlinga watercolor made by another unknown, will go on sale next Wednesday at the house Sotheby’swhich hopes to set a new record with this planetary success.
In 1997, at 23 years old, the young illustrator Thomas Taylor, who worked in a children’s bookstore in Cambridge (United Kingdom), was commissioned to make the illustrations for harry potter and the Philosopher’s Stonethe first of the seven volumes of this saga translated into 80 languages and of which 500 million copies have been sold.
Taylor was one of the first people to read the manuscript of Rowling’s work commissioned by editor Barry Cunningham of the small Bloomsbury publishing house, recalls Sotheby’s antique books specialist Kalika Sands, who works in the manuscripts department.
“It’s the first visualization or visual representation of the wizarding world of Harry Potter,” with his round glasses, lightning bolt-shaped scar on his forehead and colorful scarf, boarding the train to Hogwarts, Sands tells AFP.
At that time, both author and illustrator were complete strangers and no one could have imagined the success of this work, of which initially only 500 copies were printed, most of them distributed in libraries. Word of mouth created her legend.
Illustration
One of those first copies appears with Taylor’s illustration – a little less detailed – on the cover of the book, the only one in which he participated.
“It is exciting to see the painting that marked the beginning of my career, decades later and as brilliant as ever! It transports me to the experience of reading Harry Potter for the first time (…) and the process of creating what is now an iconic image,” says Taylor, quoted in a Sotheby’s statement.
Now, the estimated price of the illustration, which goes on sale June 26 along with works by Arthur Conan Doyle, Charles Dickens, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Edgard Allan Poe, from the collection The Library of Dr. Rodney F. Swantko , is between $400,000 and $600,000, the highest for a job related to the young sorcerer’s apprentice.
At an auction in 2001, Taylor’s illustration sold for 85,750 pounds (about $108,370 at current exchange rates), when four volumes of the saga had been published, which also became a successful film.
In 2023, to commemorate 25 years since the series began, Taylor’s original cover appeared on the reissue of Harry potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.
The auction house is also offering Rowling’s manuscript of The Tales of Beedle the Bard, a book of fairy tales written in 2007, estimated at between $250,000 and $350,000, which has a dedication to Barry Cunningham. It was one of seven manuscripts that the author made to give to people closely related to Harry Potter.
Source: AFP
