The Most Expensive Album Art Ever Sold

The original image for David Bowie’s 1973 Aladdin Sane album has just become the most expensive album artwork ever sold.

Credit: Bonhams

The famous picture of Bowie has beaten the record set by Led Zeppelin’s debut album artwork, which sold for $325,000 in 2020. It featured a black-and-white ink illustration from a photograph of the Hindenburg disaster, taken by Sam Shere in 1937.

Bowie's Aladdin Sane cover photo was shot by Brian Duffy, one of the most influential London photographers (along with David Bailey and Terence Donovan) of the 1960s.

To think of Bowie is to conjure Duffy's striking photograph shot in a London studio for the musician’s sixth album. It pictures Bowie with a red and blue lightning bolt slashed across his face, with his cheeks, lips, and eyelids rouged against a stark white backdrop. The striking image has become known as the 'Mona Lisa of Pop' and is one of the most recognisable images of all time. It sold for £380,000 ($496,000) at Bonhams London on 5 November.

In the past decade Duffy’s image of Bowie has been seen by thousands of people around the world. The Duffy archive loaned the Aladdin Sane artwork to the V&A for its world-touring David Bowie Is exhibition, which became the V&A’s most visited international touring show in its 165-year history.