Original illustration of the “Harry Potter” book auctioned for $1.9 million

An original watercolor illustration by a first edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone is the most valuable Harry Potter item ever sold after an unknown buyer purchased it at auction this week for $1.9 million.

Per BBC, the watercolor illustration by artist Thomas Taylor, was sold for $1.9 million (£1.5 million) at Sotheby’s auction house in New York City on Wednesday, June 26, in a bidding war between four bidders that lasted about 10 minutes.

The artwork was originally expected to sell for $400,000 to $600,000, according to Sotheby’s – the highest estimate for a work of art of this type before this week. But the piece exceeded all expectations and became the most valuable object of the Harry Potter Franchise on Wednesday.

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Taylor was a 23-year-old Welsh native when he drew the now iconic image of the young wizard Harry Potter standing in front of the Hogwarts Express in 1997.

According to his website, Taylor was working in a children’s bookstore in Cambridge, England, when he found one of the first manuscripts of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (called Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone in the USA) and was inspired to send examples of his artwork to publishers. Bloomsbury commissioned him to illustrate the first Harry Potter book.

The artwork, which was sold on Wednesday, was created using “concentrated watercolor and black pencil outlines,” according to the BBC – and took Taylor two days to complete.

It was first auctioned in 2001 – before author JK Rowling had finished writing the series – and sold for £85,750 (about $108,000 at the current exchange rate).

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“This is really the first visualization of Harry and the wizarding world,” Kalika Sands of Sotheby’s auction house told the BBC about the significance of the illustration.

“It’s been extraordinary to see not only the end of Harry’s story, but also how the Harry Potter franchise has taken off and how, in that time, new generations have come to appreciate Harry and his journey,” she said of the price increase in the two decades since the artwork was last sold.