James Bond’s world was built on paper as well as on screen. A photographic montage for Thunderball, its corresponding Italian re-release poster and a British Diamonds Are Forever quad featured in Bonhams’ Espionage: Fact & Fiction auction, held online from May 18 to 28, 2026. Together, the works offer a view of the images used to sell Bond to audiences: dramatic compositions, recognizable faces and a promise of action compressed into a single sheet.

These lots tell a different story from the vehicles and gadgets associated with the films. They concern the process of making a film visible before a viewer reaches the cinema, and the survival of that promotional material as collectible design. The distinction between an original artwork and a printed poster is central here. One preserves part of the work behind a campaign; the other shows how a finished image reached its audience.

Thunderball: From Photographic Montage to Printed Poster

The Thunderball group was catalogued as a unique artwork on card, framed and glazed, together with an Italian poster for the film’s 1971 re-release under the title Operazione Tuono. Bonhams’ describes the artwork as a photographic montage. Its arrangement brings together Sean Connery and scenes of action in a compact horizontal composition, allowing several elements of the film’s appeal to coexist within one image.

The artwork measures 17.8 by 38.1 centimetres, while the accompanying poster measures 45.8 by 66.2 centimetres. A particularly revealing feature survives on the reverse of the frame: Bonhams notes a Perspex window through which the original Italian printers’ instructions can be seen. That detail links the object to the practical production of promotional material, giving the montage an interest that extends beyond the scene depicted on its face.

Seen alongside the full poster, the photographic artwork invites a comparison between the image itself and its presentation for an audience. The printed sheet adds prominent lettering and the film’s title, organizing the pictures into a recognizable advertisement. Together, the two objects show how a photographic composition became part of a theatrical campaign.

Robert E. McGinnis and Diamonds Are Forever

The British quad for Diamonds Are Forever provides a different approach to Bond’s visual identity. Catalogued with artwork by Robert E. McGinnis (1926–2025), the 1971 poster combines illustrated spectacle with Sean Connery’s name and the familiar 007 branding. Its broad format, measuring approximately 76 by 102 centimetres, gives the composition room to build a dense impression of glamour and action around the central figures. The offered example was described as linen-backed.

Unlike the Thunderball photographic artwork, the Diamonds Are Forever example is a printed film poster; the attribution identifies the artist responsible for its design, not an original painting offered with it. That difference matters when looking at film memorabilia, because original campaign artwork, later prints and theatrical posters can have very different histories.

The Film Image as a Collectible

The appeal of these objects is not confined to the fame of the franchise. Photographic montage and illustration offer distinct ways of constructing an image of Bond: one assembles moments and faces from the screen, while the other interprets the film through a drawn composition. Looking at the complete sheets, as well as the details, reveals how lettering, framing and the choice of imagery work together to make the promise of a film immediately legible.

Bonhams’ May sale brought these works into a wider conversation about espionage and popular culture, but they stand on their own as examples of commercial image-making. The montage retains a connection to the printers’ workshop, the re-release poster records a later campaign, and the McGinnis design captures the expansive visual language of a British quad. For collectors, each represents a different stage in the passage from film production to publicity, and from temporary advertisement to an object kept and studied decades later.

Source: Bonhams.

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