This photograph is a rarely seen original colour transparency image from Brian Duffy's photo session for David Bowie's world-famous 1973 album Aladdin Sane. The album cover - featuring Bowie in character as his 'Aladdin Sane' persona, with a lightning bolt across his face - is perhaps one of the most striking and enduring images of the artist.

Duffy is widely considered to be one of the UK's most creative photographers. He is credited with conceiving the persona of 'Aladdin Sane' after interpreting Bowie's original title of 'A Lad Insane' in 1973. Duffy's creative partnership with Bowie continued for a number of years, with Duffy subsequently producing imagery for the albums Lodger (1979) and Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps) (1980).

The print was gifted to the V&A in 2018 by the Duffy Archive to celebrate the V&A's best-selling David Bowie is exhibition, which welcomed over 2 million visitors during its global tour. Since 2013, David Bowie is travelled to eleven venues in five countries, and became the most-visited international touring show in the V&A's 165-year history. The V&A had worked with the Duffy Archive in 2013 to select another previously unpublished image from the Aladdin Sane contact sheet, "David Bowie Eyes Open", as the lead image for the exhibition.