Freddie Mercury’s piano, with which he composed almost all of his “Bohemian Rhapsody” work, sold for 1,742 million pounds sterling (two million euros) at auction at Sotheby’s (auction house owned by Patrick Drahi, owner of SFR and BFMTV) in London on Wednesday night.
The main of a series of sales of thousands of objects that belonged to the Queen singer, this Yamaha quarter-tail was sold, however, with a cost included, below the estimate published by the auction house, of 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.
Another important piece, the “Bohemian Rhapsody” manuscript, sold for 1.3 million pounds sterling (1.6 million euros).
“Mongolian Rhapsody”
The fifteen pages written in pen and pencil reveal the different directions envisioned by the artist for this title that would initially be called “Mongolian Rhapsody”.
Sotheby’s had published an estimate of between 800,000 and 1.2 million pounds sterling (between 930,000 and 1.4 million euros).
The proofs of “We Are The Champions” were auctioned at 317,000 pounds (370,000 euros), the same as those of “Don’t Stop Me Now”.
The evening, which opened to the rhythm of “We Will Rock You”, saw 59 lots pass under the hammer of auctioneer Oliver Barker.
The first of them, the door of Garden Lodge, Freddie Mercury’s house in West London. Saturated with fan graffiti, the green door of the property was sold – expenses included – for 412,750 pounds sterling (481,736 euros), pulverizing the estimate published by the auction house (between 15,000 and 25,000 pounds sterling).
At these auctions there was also a succession of paintings that adorned the interior of the legendary rocker: works by Chagall, Dalí, Picasso, as well as the last painting acquired by the artist, a month before his death, an oil on canvas by James Tissot, sold by 483.6000 lbs.
After Wednesday’s sale, in addition to three online sales, two more indoor auctions will follow.
mustache comb
All these objects are put up for sale by Mary Austin, a close friend with whom he was even engaged for a while and to whom Freddie Mercury had made his heir.
“Mary Austin lived with the collection” and “cared for it for more than three decades” at the Garden Lodge where she lived, Gabriel Heaton, a Sotheby’s specialist in books and manuscripts, told AFP last month.
“Freddie Mercury was not interested in having a museum of his life, but he loved auctions,” to the point of being a regular at Sotheby’s, he had specified.
In addition to the artist, the auction lots also tell the story of the man who was Freddie Mercury, his passion for cats, Japan -as evidenced by his collection of kimonos and prints-, his taste for receptions.
from the basement to the attic
The contents of your wardrobe will also change hands, your most extravagant stage costumes, your Hawaiian shirts, your Superman tank top.
There are also more intimate objects, like this collection of poems written down by his hand when he was a teenager, a mustache comb; fun too, like a series of games including a traveling Scrabble, in which the rocker was a formidable player.
Before being dispersed, the collection was brought together in a month-long free exhibition at Sotheby’s in London, which drew 140,000 visitors, according to the auction house.
In April, when the auction was announced, Sotheby’s estimated that they would raise at least six million pounds (more than 6.7 million euros).
Proceeds will be donated in part to the Mercury Phoenix Trust and the Elton John Aids Foundation, two organizations involved in the fight against AIDS.
The 215,000 pounds sterling (250,000 euros), auction price, excluding expenses, from the sale of a Cartier ring offered by Elton John to Freddie Mercury, will be donated entirely to the singer’s foundation.
According to Sotheby’s, this is the largest collection, by volume, by a superstar or cultural icon since the Elton John sale in 1988, where 2,000 lots were sold for a total of £4.8m.
Source: BFM TV
