The work by Thomas Taylor, who was just 23 in 1997 when he painted the iconic image of the boy with the lightning bolt mark and round glasses, is expected to fetch $400,000 to $600,000 at Sotheby's.
The original watercolor illustration of the first edition of "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" - the book that introduced the world to the young bespectacled wizard - will be auctioned in New York.
The work by Thomas Taylor, who was just 23 in 1997 when he drew the iconic image of the boy with the lightning bolt mark and round glasses, is expected to fetch $400,000 to $600,000 at Sotheby's.
Taylor was working in a children's bookstore in Cambridge, England, when publisher Barry Cunningham of Bloomsbury offered him the chance to paint the image for J.K. Rowling's book, due out in London on June 26, 1997.
According to Sotheby's book specialist Kalika Sands, he was one of the first people to read the book, receiving an early copy of the manuscript to serve as the basis for his work.
"So he knew about the world before anyone else, and it was actually up to him how he would visualize Harry Potter," Sands told AFP.
When the book came out, Rowling and Taylor were unknown, and few expected it to become a worldwide phenomenon. Only 500 copies of the first edition have been printed, and 300 of them have been sent to libraries, according to Sotheby's.
But the book soon became a bestseller.
27 years later, the so-called Potterverse includes Rowling's seven original books, a blockbuster movie, a critically acclaimed stage play and video games.
More than 500 million copies of the books have been sold in 80 languages.
"It's thrilling to see the picture that marks the very beginning of my career, decades later and as vivid as ever," Taylor, now a children's book author and illustrator, said in a statement released by Sotheby's.
"Today, as I write and illustrate my own stories, I'm proud to look back on such a magical beginning," Taylor said.
When the illustration was first offered at auction at Sotheby's in London in 2001, it fetched just 85,750 pounds (about $108,500 at current exchange rates) - but only four of the books were published at the time.
The illustration is part of a collection of manuscripts and rare paperbacks being offered for sale that includes works by some of literature's greatest heavyweights, including Edgar Allan Poe, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Mark Twain and Charles Dickens.
The collection belonged to surgeon Rodney Swantko, who died in 2002 at the age of 82. | BGNES
