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Thousands of Freddie Mercury's personal items to go on sale

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Agence France-Presse

<div class="embed-wrap"><figure data-feedback="fb:likes,fb:comments"><img alt="Freddie Mercury" s="" signature="" crown="" and="" cloak="" worn="" throughout="" is="" pictured="" during="" a="" press="" preview="" ahead="" of="" the="" Mercury:="" A="" World="" His="" at="" auctioneers="" in="" London.="" Daniel="" src="https://sa.kapamilya.com/absnews/abscbnnews/media/2023/tvpatrol/09/06/freddie-mercury-s-signature-crown-and-cloak-afp.jpg"/><figcaption>Freddie Mercury&#x27;s signature crown and cloak ensemble, worn throughout Queen&#x27;s 1986 &#x27;Magic&#x27; Tour, is pictured during a press preview ahead of the &quot;Freddie Mercury: A World of His Own&quot; auctions, at Sotheby&#x27;s auctioneers in London. Daniel LEAL, AFP</figcaption></figure></div>LONDON -- Thousands of items belonging to the charismatic Queen frontman Freddie Mercury, from manuscripts of his band&#x27;s biggest hits to furniture, paintings and knick-knacks are on auction in London from Wednesday.Among the highlights of the Sotheby&#x27;s &quot;evening sale,&quot; which will be followed by two other live auctions and three online sales, is Mercury&#x27;s piano.The Yamaha quarter-tail piano was bought by Mercury in 1975 and was used to create almost all of his greatest songs. It is expected to sell for $2.5 mllion to $3.75 million.Also on sale is the original manuscript for epic hit &quot;Bohemian Rhapsody,&quot; whose 15 pages of pencil and ballpoint pen remarks reveal the different directions Mercury envisaged for the track.It also reveals that it was originally going to be called &quot;Mongolian Rhapsody.&quot;Paintings by Chagall, Dali and Picasso that adorned Mercury&#x27;s home, as well as the last painting he bought a month before his death from AIDS in 1991 -- an oil on canvas by James Jacques Joseph Tissot -- will also go under the hammer.All the items for sale are from Mercury&#x27;s home, Garden Lodge, in west London. The property&#x27;s green door, covered in fan graffiti, is one of the lots.The entire collection is being offered for sale by Mary Austin, a close friend and one-time fiancee of Mercury&#x27;s.&quot;Mary Austin has lived with the collection and has cared for the collection for more than three decades,&quot; Gabriel Heaton, a books and manuscripts specialist at Sotheby&#x27;s, told AFP.Mercury &quot;was not interested in having a museum of his life but he loved auctions,&quot; to the point of being a regular at Sotheby&#x27;s sales, said Heaton.Austin believes the artist -- who was 45 when he died -- would have &quot;loved&quot; this sale, he added.Some 1,469 lots will go under the hammer at the famous London auction house, whose facade has been decorated with a huge moustache for the occasion.Many reveal another side of Mercury, including his passion for cats and for Japan -- as evidenced by his collection of kimonos and prints.Mercury&#x27;s most flamboyant stage costumes, Hawaiian shirt and Superman tank top will also find new homes along with his personal polaroids and legendary snapper Mick Rock&#x27;s shots.The finest bottles from his cellar, such as Dom Perignon champagne, will be up for grabs alongside more intimate items, such as a book of personally annotated poetry and a moustache comb.Among the more playful items are a set of games including travel Scrabble, at which Mercury excelled.Before the sale, the auction house hosted the collection at a month-long exhibition, open to the public free of charge.Sotheby&#x27;s estimated when the auction was announced in April that the lots would fetch at least £6 million.Part of the proceeds will be donated to the Mercury Phoenix Trust and the Elton John Aids Foundation, two organizations involved in the fight against AIDS.Sotheby&#x27;s says it is the largest collection, by volume, of a cultural icon to go to auction since the Elton John sale in 1988, when 2,000 lots sold for a total of £4.8 million.<div>© Agence France-Presse</div>

Thousands of items belonging to the charismatic Queen frontman Freddie Mercury, from manuscripts of his band's biggest hits to furniture, paintings and knick-knacks are on auction in London from Wednesday.