He saw it as an extension of himself: a small Yamaha grand piano on which Freddie Mercury composed almost all of his work for the band Queen starting with Bohemian Rhapsody, sold for £1.742 million (two million euros) during an auction event at Sotheby’s in London, Wednesday September 6.
This Yamaha quarter grand, which was the main item in a series of thousands of items that belonged to the singer, sold, costs included, below the estimate published by the auction house, between two and three million pounds sterling (2.3 to 3.5 million euros). The British singer, who died of AIDS in 1991 at the age of 45, bought it for a thousand pounds in 1975.
“Bohemian Rhapsody” manuscript
Another major piece, the manuscript of Bohemian Rhapsody was sold for 1.3 million pounds sterling (1.52 million euros). The fifteen pages written in pencil and ballpoint pen reveal the different directions envisaged by the artist for this title which was originally to be called “Mongolian Rhapsody”. Sotheby’s had published an estimate between 800,000 and 1.2 million pounds sterling (933,000 to 1.4 million euros). We Are the Champions proofs went for 317,000 pounds (370,000 euros), as did those of Don’t Stop Me Now.
Opened to the rhythm of We Will Rock You, the evening was to see fifty-nine lots go under the hammer of auctioneer Oliver Barker. First of these, the door to Garden Lodge, the home of Freddie Mercury in West London. Saturated with fan graffiti, the green door of the property was sold – including costs – for 412,750 pounds sterling (481,254 euros), pulverizing the estimate published by the auction house (between 15,000 and 25,000 pounds sterling, i.e. 17,490 and 29,150 euros).
Freddie Mercury “loved auctions”
These auctions also saw a succession of paintings that adorned the interior of the legendary rocker: works by Marc Chagall, Salvador Dali, Pablo Picasso, as well as the last painting purchased by the artist, a month before his death, an oil on canvas by James Tissot, sold for 483,600 pounds (563,863 euros). After Wednesday’s sale, two more indoor auctions are to follow in addition to three online sales.
All these objects are put up for sale by Mary Austin, a close friend with whom he was even engaged for a time and whom Freddie Mercury had made his heiress. “Mary Austin lived with the collection” and “tended it for more than three decades” at the Garden Lodge where she lived, Gabriel Heaton, book and manuscript specialist at Sotheby’s, told Agence France-Presse last month. . “It didn’t interest ‘Freddie Mercury’ to have a museum of his life, but he loved auctions”, to the point of being a regular at Sotheby’s, he had clarified.
In addition to the artist, the auction lots also tell the story of the man that Freddie Mercury was, his passion for cats, Japan – as evidenced by his collection of kimonos and prints –, his taste for receptions.
The contents of his wardrobe will also change hands, his most flamboyant stage costumes, his Hawaiian shirts, his Superman tank top.
There are also more intimate objects, such as this collection of poetry annotated by his hand when he was a teenager, or a mustache comb; fun too, like a set of games including a travel Scrabble, of which the rocker was a formidable player.
Before being scattered, the collection was brought together in a month-long free exhibition at Sotheby’s in London, which welcomed 140,000 visitors, according to the auction house. In April, when the auction was announced, Sotheby’s estimated that it would bring in at least six million pounds (more than 7 million euros).
Profits will be donated in part to the Mercury Phoenix Trust and Elton John Aids Foundation, two organizations involved in the fight against AIDS. The 215,000 pounds sterling (250,000 euros) – price under the hammer, excluding costs – from the sale of a Cartier ring offered by Elton John to Freddie Mercury will be entirely donated to the singer’s foundation.
It is, according to Sotheby’s, the largest collection, by volume, of a superstar or cultural icon since the Elton John sale in 1988, in which 2,000 lots sold in total for £4.8 million. sterling.