The original tracing for the artwork to Led Zeppelin’s debut album has been sold for a cool £260,500.
The iconic artwork was put designed by revered artist George Hardie, and was paid just £60 in 1969 to produce a version of Sam Shere’s image of the Hindenburg Airship on fire in 1937. Hardie marked tracing paper with small black dots to create an image similar to a low-resolution newsprint photo.
The single sheet of tracing paper was stored away in a drawer by Hardie, but seemingly forgot about it for decades. Over 50 years later it has become one of the most famous pieces of artwork in rock ‘n’ roll history, and has now been auctioned for six figures at a Christies sale.
“It was unsullied, in a clean folder on which one of my partners had written years ago, ”G’s pension fund’,” said Hardie in a statement. “I think the drawing made a good and memorable cover, but this was more to do with the photograph and Jimmy Page’s choice of it than with my skill as a dotter.”
Hardie would also go on to draw the artwork for Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of The Moon in 1970, which was then designed by Storm Thorgerson and Hipgnosis.
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