‘Aladdin Sane’ to become world’s most expensive album cover
(Credits: Album Cover)
The iconic cover of Aladdin Sane by David Bowie is expected to become the world’s most expensive album artwork ever, when it goes up for auction at an estimated £300,000.
The striking artwork for the 1973 record shows Bowie in one of his most famous ever poses, with a red lightning bolt emblazoned across his face. Having been shot by Brian Duffy, a prolific photographer known for capturing the counterculture of the 1960s, the original image is being sold as one of 35 items from his archive.
Currently, it is being predicted that the shot could surpass the largest amount an album artwork has ever been sold for at auction, after the cover of Led Zeppelin’s debut record previously garnered $325,000 when it went under the hammer in 2020.
Other items in the collection being sold at auction include the stool that Bowie sat on during the photoshoot for Aladdin Sane, the 500c Hasselblad camera used by Duffy to take the shot, and the inside artwork of a full-length shot of Bowie dressed as the alter ego, which was included in only the first 5,000 copies of the record. That image alone is expected to fetch between £150,000 and £200,000 itself.
The images are going up for auction after over a decade touring the world, after Duffy’s estate lent them to the V&A’s David Bowie Is exhibition, which took in over 312,000 visitors in London alone before going on to tour Toronto, São Paulo, Berlin, Chicago, Paris, Melbourne, Groningen in the Netherlands, Bologna, Tokyo, Barcelona and New York.
It comes as the V&A have recently opened a huge Bowie archive within their storehouse, with thousands of items from the artist’s collections now available to view by the public.
The sale of the Aladdin Sane artwork is being facilitated by Bonham’s, and will begin from October 22nd.
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