UK artist Thomas Taylor painted the original watercolor art featured on the first-edition covers of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (published outside the UK as Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone) when he was just 23 years old. Last month, the work came up for auction for the second time at Sotheby’s in New York, where it sold for $1.9 million, increasing its value by more than 1,650 percent since it was first auctioned in 2001. The eye-popping sum makes it the most expensive piece of “Harry Potter” ephemera ever sold.
At this time, Sotheby’s has not identified the person who bought the original watercolor.
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