UPDATE: Wizards of the Coast ended its relationship with Terese Nielsen in June 2020 after controversy over Nielsen’s Twitter follows and likes of conspiracy-driven and trans-exclusionary accounts and tweets, as well as a donation of artwork she made to a racist, QAnon, and conspiracy-focused YouTube channel.
After five weeks of bidding, all five of the original pencil sketches by Terese Nielsen for her SDCC Promotional Planeswalker paintings have sold for a combined total of $22,632.
The Facts
We have followed each sale of the original paintings for the SDCC Planeswalkers by Terese Nielsen, and the sale of these sketches close as one of the highest grossing groups of original Magic art in the game’s history. The total price realized for the group of ten works of art by Terese Nielsen, both final paintings and sketches, is an incredible $157,720.
A bit smaller than the finished paintings, each sketch is rendered in graphite and measures 10 inches by 14 inches on 12 inch by 16 inch Strathmore tracing paper parchment. They were sold one at a time on eBay just as their finals before them, in the same order as the originals save for the first two. For the sketches, Nissa, Vital Force was sold before Liliana Untouched by Death.
The Hammer
The auction results are as follows:
Nissa, Vital Force was the first sketch to sell, fetching $4,300.
Liliana, Untouched by Death was the second to sell, bringing $4,870.
Chandra, Torch of Defiance sold third, achieving a final price of $4,812.
Jace, Cunning Castaway was the penultimate planeswalker sketch ending at $3,550
And finally Gideon of the Trials concluded these auctions on a high note finishing at $5,100
The artist was happy to see the set stay together, and as a collector myself I love to see something like this stay as a collection. It also makes the pieces much easier to find for a future Magic art show, exhibition, or convention.
It’s worth mentioning that while each of the other sketches got off to an expected fast start, Gideon sat just above $500 for the majority of the auction run. His price increased tenfold in the closing minutes, and his sketch ended as the top lot of the five. Could it be it was someone’s last ditch effort to try and own a piece from the series? I wouldn’t be surprised, and it certainly made for a fun capstone to this marathon of auctions.
Wrapping Up
The five SDCC Planeswalker final paintings and sketches were each a hard fought battle between dozens of different potential collectors. Every collector values art different: some use percentages, some use price per square inch, and other simply acquire what moves them at a price within their collecting budget. To have this suite combine to total over $150,000 is a landmark for original Magic art, and one we will probably not soon see again. It was a perfect storm of a phenomenal artist, incredible renderings of some of the game’s most popular and important characters, and a time when the market for original Magic art is at one of its highest.
It’s been an absolute blast covering the sale of each of these works over the last ten weeks, and I hope I’ve been able to provide you all a window into the world this wonderful little corner of Magic. Thanks and see you next time!
Donny Caltrider has been playing Magic since 2002 and collecting original Magic art since 2017. He has an M.A. in Museum Studies from Johns Hopkins University and enjoys telling stories about art, objects, and the intersection of fantasy with real-life. You can find him on Twitter talking about #mtgart, museums, and other #vorthos related goodness. Follow along and continue the conversation!