"Harry Potter" sketch heads to auction house
The initial version of "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" recently went under the hammer, and now the accompanying artwork by Thomas Taylor is up for grabs as well. This vibrant Aquarell piece is expected to rake in roughly half a million Euro. The artist fondly recalls the enchanting beginnings of that time.
The tale of the lad with the lightning-bolt scar and round specs shot to stardom: The original artwork from British artist Thomas Taylor adorning the English first edition of "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" is set to be auctioned off in NYC for a potential half a million Euro. Sotheby's has set a price tag of $400,000 to $600,000 for the auction of Taylor's artwork on the English first edition of "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" next Wednesday.
Taylor's artwork adorned the cover of the first book in the magical series. When he crafted the iconic image of Harry Potter in 1997, Taylor was a sprightly 23. The budding artist was employed at a kid's bookstore in Cambridge, England, at the time, and he was tasked by Bloomsbury Publisher Barry Cunningham to create the picture for J.K. Rowling's soon-to-be-released book. Today, Taylor penned and sketches his own stories, he disclosed to Sotheby's. But he feels proud looking back on these mystical beginnings.
Taylor was among the first readers of the book - according to Sotheby's book expert Kalika Sands, he received one of the first manuscripts, which he used as a blueprint for his illustrations. As a result, he was "familiar with the Harry Potter universe before anyone else," said Sands to the AP. Consequently, he enjoyed unfettered imaginative liberty when visualizing the young sorcerer.
Rowling and Taylor were unfamiliar faces at the book's unveiling. With such unprecedented success of the books, no one had foreseen it at the launch of the first book. According to Sotheby's, only 500 copies of the first "Harry Potter" book were printed. 300 of them were reportedly donated to libraries.
The first "Harry Potter" book dropped on June 26, 1997. To date, the seven books have sold over 500 million copies globally, they have been translated into 80 languages. The novels were adapted into eight films, which grossed over 6.5 billion Euro at the global box office.
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J.K. Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter series, was initially an unknown figure at the launch of the first book. Sotheby's will auction off Taylor's artwork, which graced the cover of the first Harry Potter book, for a potential half a million Euro, highlighting the rise of both Rowling's literature and Taylor's career in the entertainment industry.
