In his recent autobiography The Tastemaker: My life with the legends and geniuses of rock music, Tony King recalls sitting with Queen star Freddie Mercury in his final days. “So brave. Shopping all the way, buying paintings at Christie’s auctions,” King wrote. “I used to lay on the bed next to him and hold his hand, which was cold as a stone, as a bone. They brought the paintings he had bought and placed them at the end of the bed for him to look at. I said, ‘Fred, why are you doing this?’ And he said, ‘What else do I have to do? I can’t go out, I can’t leave the bed, but at least I can go shopping.’ »
In September, more than 30 years after Mercury’s death from complications of AIDS in 1991, Sotheby’s will hold a huge six-part sale of the singer-songwriter’s collection, consisting of around 1,500 lots from his house of Kensington, Garden Lodge. Mercury left the west London home and its vast contents to Mary Austin, his former girlfriend and lifelong friend. For three decades Austin has kept the house and its contents almost exactly as they were when Mercury died, but she has now decided to sell the collection (it is unclear if the house will also be sold).
“For many years now, I have had the joy and privilege of living surrounded by all the wonderful things that Freddie sought and loved so much,” Austin said in a statement. “But the years have passed, and the time has come for me to make the difficult decision to close this very special chapter in my life. It was important to me to do this in a way that I felt Freddie would have liked, and there was nothing he loved more than an auction.
by James Tissot type of beauty (1880), seen here in situ at Freddie Mercury’s Garden Lodge, carries Sotheby’s highest estimate, £400,000 to £600,000 Courtesy of Sotheby’s
Mercury bought Garden Lodge in 1980 and its contents, according to David Macdonald, head of sole proprietorship sales at Sotheby’s London, are “really an 1980s extravaganza, but sprinkled with shiny things…it’s amazing, in 20 years odd at Sotheby’s, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything quite like it – it’s on the scale of ‘Chatsworth: The Attic Sale’ [Sotheby’s three-day event in 2010]”. Macdonald also likens the auction to Elton John’s sale at Sotheby’s in 1988, when more than 2,000 items belonging to the singer sold for more than $8.2 million.
The Mercury Collection includes hand-written lyrics for songs by Queen (including working lyrics for We Are the Champions, estimated at £200,000-300,000, and Killer Queen, estimated at £50,000-70,000 ) as well as original stage-worn items such as the crown and accompanying cape worn for the final performance of God Save The Queen on her last tour with Queen, The Magic Tour in 1986 (estimated 60,000-80 £000). The crown, modeled after the Coronation Crown, will be on display in the windows of Sotheby’s New Bond Street from today (April 26) until May 5 as the coronation of King Charles approaches.
But alongside these memorabilia are items that reflect Mercury’s more private side, his broad eye that fell particularly on Japanese art, studio glassware and Victorian imagery.
Utagawa Hiroshige, Sudden downpour on Shin-Ohashi Bridge1857 Courtesy of Sotheby’s
Macdonald draws further parallels with the sale of the David Bowie collection in 2016, also at Sotheby’s. “Obviously with Bowie it was an exquisite capsule collection, just art and great classic design,” he says. “That’s all…memories but also things that show him [Mercury] as a serious collector in his own right. While Mercury showed little interest in buying contemporary art, Macdonald describes him as being “in that Victorian tradition of collecting – buying the best furniture, the best pieces of silver, the best pieces of china. Combined with things that simply caught his eye, he was definitely a buyer as well as a collector. He adds: “Everything has been preserved and beautifully maintained – you have her wardrobe from the early 1970s until her death.”
Mercury had a special love for Japan. Queen toured the country six times and returned many times, buying art, antiques and textiles – he built up a collection of kimonos and wore them frequently on stage (a Showa period embroidered furisode is estimated between £5,000 and £8,000 in the sale). “Freddie took Japanese art very seriously,” Macdonald says. “In his library, there are many books, on Japanese inro, lacquerware, textiles, etc. And they are well laminated, not yet wrapped in cellophane. Garden Lodge also contained a Japanese room, furnished with chinoiseries, antique furniture, woodcuts, etc. And no one was allowed in that room, it was very private.
Pablo Picasso, Jaqueline in the Black Hat1962 Courtesy of Sotheby’s
Other areas of particular interest were art glass (perhaps influenced by its director, John Reid’s own glass collection), 20th century works on paper by Matisse, Picasso and Chagall, and images Victorian – he was particularly fond of slightly outrageous 19th century characters. , like James Tissot. In fact, the very last painting Mercury purchased – at Christie’s in October 1991, a month before his death – was Tissot’s portrait of his mistress Kathleen Newton. type of beauty (1880) now carries the highest estimate among Sotheby’s auctions, between £400,000 and £600,000.
Mercury bought on intuition, without the help of an adviser, mostly at auctions at Christie’s and Sotheby’s where he was a well-known figure in the 1980s. “There are still people who work at Sotheby’s who remember him walking in, looking at works and wanting to discuss them,” Macdonald says. “He was buying things with passion until the end, and it was very moving at home, to see where the works were hung. Many things were placed so that he could see them from his sofa or his bed – much of the art glass was in his bedroom, and the Tissot was hung up so he could see it from his couch.
A Dunford Wood feline-filled silk waistcoat said to have been Freddie Mercury’s favorite waistcoat Courtesy of Sotheby’s
Macdonald summarizes Mercury’s collecting motivations into four broad categories: “Either; to increase a serious collection which has aroused his interest; to use, for example, a beautiful pair of silver candlesticks for the dining table; for fun, something that made him smile; or for his own professional use, something he has created or worn, such as his lyrics or stage costumes. All the things in the sale seem to fit in one of these boxes.
Sotheby’s will present highlights of the sale in New York, Los Angeles and Hong Kong next June, before displaying the entire collection on New Bond Street in London from August 4 to September 5. The six auctions (three live in London and three online) will begin with an evening auction on September 6 which, according to Macdonald, will be “just as Freddie would have liked it: a black-tie evening sale at the ‘Ancient. It’s like a greatest hits album, each department at Sotheby’s picks things they particularly liked.
The collection is not guaranteed and Macdonald predicts the total low estimate will be around £6million. But, he adds from the back of Sotheby’s London warehouse, “there are still heaps of boxes to go through – I just opened a porcelain box, but at the bottom was a beautiful Art Deco Cartier clock “.
