‘Most valuable Harry Potter item ever sold at auction’ is book cover at £1.5m

The artwork for the cover of the first book in the series, by JK Rowling, fetched 1.9 million US dollars (£1.5 million) at a sale by Sotheby’s auction house in New York on Wednesday.

The dealer said it is “the most valuable Harry Potter item ever sold at auction”.

A first edition copy of Harry Potter And The Philosopher’s Stone was thought to be the highest price recorded for an item from the fantasy series.

It sold for 421,000 US dollars (£337,238) at Heritage Auctions in Dallas, in December 2021.

The new sale of the illustration, by Thomas Taylor, which featured on the debut edition of the novel in 1997 was involved in a four-way between bidders for nearly 10 minutes before selling for the record amount.

It had an estimate of 400,000-600,000 US dollars (£320,420-£480,630), which Sotheby’s claims is the “highest pre-sale estimate ever placed on an item of any Harry Potter-related work”.

The watercolour was first offered at auction in 2001 at Sotheby’s London, when only the first four books in the series were published.

At the time, the depiction of the budding wizard, with his dark hair, round glasses and lightning bolt scar, on his way to Hogwarts on board the train, was estimated at £20,000 to £25,000 before being sold at £85,750.

Taylor, who went on to write the children’s series Erie-On-Sea, had his first professional commission with Harry Potter at the age of 23.

Following being asked to illustrate the character by Barry Cunningham at Bloomsbury, Taylor took two days to complete the illustration.

He used concentrated watercolours on cold-pressed watercolour paper and outlined with black Karisma pencil.

Taylor was among the first to read the manuscript.

All bids include buyer’s premium.