David Bowie’s Aladdin Sane could become most expensive album art ever sold

Original image shot by Brian Duffy estimated to fetch £300,000 when it goes under the hammer in October

The original image for David Bowie’s Aladdin Sane album could become the most expensive album artwork ever sold when it goes under the hammer with an estimate of £300,000.

The famous picture of Bowie with a lightning bolt across his face could beat the record set by Led Zeppelin’s debut album artwork, which sold for $325,000 in 2020.

Shot by Brian Duffy – one of the “terrible trio” along with David Bailey and Terence Donovan who captured London as a cultural capital in the 1960s – it has become one of rock’s most famous images, and is part of 35 items from the Duffy archive being sold by Bonhams.

The lot includes the stool Bowie sat on for the 1973 Aladdin Sane shoot, the original Hasselblad 500C camera used by Duffy and a contact sheet from the shoot, which is one of only two in existence.