The original watercolour painting for the cover of the book "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" by J K Rowling from 1997 has been sold at auction. The winning bid was $1.9 million, equivalent to approximately 20 million kronor.
The cover thus becomes "the most valuable Harry Potter object ever sold at auction", according to the auction house Sotheby's.
Four bidders attempted to take home the auction and the auction house had estimated a price tag of between approximately 4 and 6 million kronor.
The cover was created in 1997 by illustrator and children's book author Thomas Taylor, then 23 years old.
"As an author and illustrator of my own stories today, I am proud to look back on such a magical beginning", he says in a statement.
The novel was the first of seven in the popular book series. Only 500 books were printed in the first edition, of which 300 were sent to libraries, according to Sotheby's. The successful books were later followed by Hollywood films, theatre, and video games.
Over 500 million books have been sold in 80 languages.
