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THE top estimate was £600 but Freddie Mercury’s silver moustache comb sold for a whopping £152,400 at the final day of the Queen frontman’s series of online sales at Sotheby’s in London yesterday. The little comb by Tiffany and Co. ignited the public interest at the month long exhibition at Sotheby’s before the series of Freddie Mercury sales.
Freddie Mercury’s Yamaha grand piano sold for £1,742,000 at Sotheby’s last evening. Though slightly below estimate it was a record for a composers piano. He used it to compose some of Queen’s greatest hits. An original 15-page manuscript for their epic hit Bohemian Rhapsody, with the working title “Mongolian Rhapsody” and which reveals in its notes the different directions Mercury saw the track going in, was sold for £1.3 million. The first night of the Freddie Mercury: A World of His Own auction series saw bidders from 61 countries drive 93% of lots over their estimate, with Bohemian Rhapsody lyrics and Freddie’s Yamaha piano leading the sale. Sales on the opening night brought in £12.2 million in a white glove auction where every one of nearly 60 lots sold. A month long exhibition at Sotheby’s in advance of the sales drew nearly 140,000 visitors.
The second day of the sale on September 7 brought in £9.4 million.
Freddie Mercury’s silver moustache comb has caught the imagination of the public and is a surprise hit of the series of sales at Sotheby’s in London and online due to get underway next week. Estimated at £400-£600 the current bid stands at £26,000. The London exhibition at Sotheby’s, Freddie Mercury, A World of his Own, has already drawn 40,000 visitors. It runs until September 5, the day before the live auctions begin.
This 1930’s Belleek cat is one of a number of Irish lots in the online sales of the Freddie Mercury collection now ongoing at Sotheby’s. The cat is lot 1501 in the Freddie Mercury, a World of His Own sale, Crazy Little Things, which runs until September 11. The white glazed cat is estimated at £50-£60 but such is the popularity of the sale that it will make a lot more. Lot 1587 in the same sale is a large group of mixed European linen damask and cotton. It comprises various large damask linen cloths some with matching napkins, other white work embroidered and pulled-work table cloths, napkins and various other small groups of napkins, tape lace place mats, together with two new unused Irish ‘Fingal’ linen double damask cloths, ‘Celtic’ and ‘Chrysanthemum’ designs, a box of six new ‘Chrysanthemum’ design napkins and a group of 28 new ‘Artraco’ white spotted napkins. The estimate is £400-£600 but again these will sell for a lot more.
In the live At Home sale in London on September 8 is a c1760 George III giltwood mirror described as possibly Irish. The estimate is £2,000-£3,000.
Freddie Mercury’s baby grand, the matched wedding rings of Bogie and Bacall, a first edition of The Great Gatsby from the collection of Charlie Watts and Sir Roger Moore’s Lamborghini skis are among an extraordinary collection of celebrity stuff soon to come up at blockbuster sales in London and Hollywood. Collectibles like these are big business. With fans everywhere and global auction access online the business is growing exponentially.
Right now every inch of Sotheby’s 16,000 gallery space at New Bond St. in London is given over to a free exhibition of the world of Freddie Mercury in advance of three auctions on September 6, 7 and 8. Online Mercury sales already underway will run to September 11, 12 and 13. On offer are costumes, hand written lyrics, drawings, furniture, decorative and fine art that were part of his life at his London home, Garden Lodge in Kensington.The centre piece of the exhibition is his treasured Yamaha G2 Baby Grand. More than a decade of hits, from Bohemian Rhapsody to Barcelona, were composed on this treasured piano. Always kept in pristine condition it is estimated at £2 million – £3 million. There are handwritten working lyrics for Bohemian Rhapsody, Don’t Stop Me Now and Somebody to Love, costumes relating to promotional videos including a two piece stage outfit comprising catsuit and bolero of ivory satin with winged wrists and lower legs inspired by the God Mercury.
Freddie Mercury was a discriminating collector who loved going to auctions. In 1980 he acquired Garden Lodge, a Georgian style brick villa, and set about creating a home that was both grand and intimate, richly furnished and entirely of his own making. The auction will include art by Matisse, James Tissot, Picasso and Utagawa Hiroshige, Victorian paintings and works on paper, the finest examples of the glass makers art, exceptional fabrics and fine works collected on trips to Japan. All are on view at Sotheby’s in an exhibition that will close on September 5, the day that would have been Freddie Mercury’s 77th birthday.
Iconic objects from some of Hollywood’s greatest legends will come up at a sale by Turner Classic Movies and Julien’s Auctions on September 6, 7 and 8. There is everything from dresses worn by Princess Diana and Audrey Hepburn to a slave costume worn by Princess Leia in Star Wars, Captain Kirk’s Star Fleet command jacket and the 1945 wedding rings of Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. James Bond, Harry Potter, Game of Thrones, Back to the Future and Batman will all feature in a sale celebrating 100 years of Warner Brothers.
A library of First Edition classics and landmarks from the world of jazz will come up at Christie’s sale of the collection of Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts (1941-2021). The sale is led by a first edition of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby inscribed by the author to the original Gatsby of the story. There are iconic works of detective fiction by Agatha Christie and Arthur Conan Doyle alongside the best of English and American literature of the 20th century. Charlie Watts: Gentleman, Collector, Rolling Stone will take place in London on September 28. An online sale will run from September 15-29. Meantime Bonhams will offer 180 lots from the personal collection of Bond actor and UNICEF ambassador Sir Roger Moore (1927-2017) in London on October 4. This marks the 50th anniversary year of his first appearance as 007. There is Bond memorabilia like dinner suits and jackets, collectibles like a Hollywood Walk of Fame plaque and personal items like silk ties and cravats along with a pair of his Lamborghini skis.
The doors to the full and fascinating world of Fredde Mercury open today at Sotheby’s in London. Every inch of Sotheby’s 16,000 square foot gallery space in New Bond Street has been given over to the vast array of costumes, hand-written lyrics, drawings, furniture, and decorative and fine art that were so much a part of Mercury’s
life and with which he lived in his beautiful London home, Garden Lodge. At the heart of the exhibition will be the piano pictured here – revealed today for the first time – that was deeply precious to Mercury and a vital element in the creation of his greatest compositions: his treasured Yamaha G2 Baby Grand Piano, estimated at £2-3 million. On it he composed over a decade of hits, from Bohemian Rhapsody to Barcelona.
By 1975, the trusty old upright piano on which Freddie had composed the hits on Queen’s first three albums was no longer equal to his ever more panoramic musical ambitions. With the financial backing of music mogul Don Arden – who was unsuccessfully attempting to woo Queen to his management table – Freddie set out to find the perfect piano, with a sound that resonated with his evolving musical ambitions. After an intensive search lasting many weeks, he finally found what he was looking for: a rare baby grand with an easy keyboard action, an elegant look, and a particularly clean and clear sound, made by the Japanese manufacturer Yamaha, who had only recently started importing their instruments to England. The piano would just about fit into the small apartment he was sharing at the time with Mary Austin. As she recalls, ‘Freddie treated the Yamaha with absolute respect. He considered it to be more than an instrument, it was an extension of himself, his vehicle of creativity. He would never smoke at the piano or rest a glass on top of it and would ensure nobody else did either. The piano was always pristine.’
The new piano very soon proved its worth. In the months after its arrival, he used it to develop and hone the epic track Bohemian Rhapsody, released towards the end of that year. The London exhibition continues until September 5. On September 6, 7 and 8 Sotheby’s will hold three auctions devoted to the Freddie Mercury Collection. Meantime three online Freddie Mercury auctions running to September 11, 12 and 13 will get underway on August 11.
(See post on antiquesandartireland.com for April 26, 2023)
