• Legacy Freddie Mercury's legacy still poisoned 29 years later

Thousands of objects that belonged to charismatic Queen frontman Freddie Mercury, from manuscripts of the band's greatest hits to paintings and furniture, will be auctioned in London from Wednesday night.

Mercury's piano stands out in Sotheby's in-room sale, which will be followed by two more in-person auctions and three online sales.

The Yamaha piano was purchased in 1975 by Mercury, who died of AIDS in 1991 at age 45, and was used to compose almost all of his best songs.

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The drafts of 'Bohemian Rhapsody' or 'We Are the Champions', among the manuscripts of Freddie Mercury that are exhibited in New York before its auction

  • Editor: AFP London

The drafts of 'Bohemian Rhapsody' or 'We Are the Champions', among the manuscripts of Freddie Mercury that are exhibited in New York before its auction

Music.

Queen unveils unreleased song with Freddie Mercury, 'Face It Alone'

  • Editor: CARLOS FRESNEDA (Correspondent)London

Queen unveils unreleased song with Freddie Mercury, 'Face It Alone'

The instrument could fetch a value of two to three million pounds ($2.5 million to $3.75 million).

The original manuscript of the epic hit Bohemian Rhapsody will also be sold, whose 15 pages of comments written with pencil and pen show the different directions that Mercury wanted to give to the subject, which was originally going to be called Mongolian Rhapsody.

Paintings by Chagall, Dali and Picasso that adorned his home, as well as the last painting he acquired a month before his death, an oil painting by James Jacques Joseph Tissot, will also be auctioned.

Auction lover

All items for sale are from Garden Lodge, Mercury's home in West London, and include the property's green gate, covered in fan graffiti.

The collection was put up for sale by Mary Austin, a close friend who became Mercury's fiancée.

"Mary Austin has lived with the collection and cared for it for more than three decades," Gabriel Heaton, a specialist in books and manuscripts at Sotheby's, told AFP.

Mercury "wasn't interested in having a museum of his life, but he loved auctions," to the point of being a frequent visitor to Sotheby's sales, Heaton said.

Mercury's crown and cape from Queen's 1986 "Magic" tour.DANIEL LEAL | AFP

Austin thinks the singer would have "loved" this sale, he added.

Some 1,469 lots will be auctioned at the London house, whose façade was decorated for the occasion with a huge moustache.

Some objects reveal other facets of Mercury, such as his passion for cats and Japan, as indicated by his collection of kimonos and prints.

Mustache comb

Mercury's most extravagant stage costumes, such as his Hawaiian shirt and Superman tank top, will also be auctioned alongside his personal polaroid photos.

Freddie Mercury in 1984 at a concert at the Palais Omnisports de Paris Bercy.JEAN-CLAUDE COUTAUSSE | AFP

The finest bottles from his cellar, such as some Dom Perignon, will be offered alongside more intimate items, such as a book of poetry with personal annotations and a moustache comb.

There are also board games, including Scrabble, in which Mercury excelled.

Before the sale, the auction house exhibited the collection to the public for a month.

When the auction was announced in April, Sotheby's estimated 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's says it is the largest collection by volume of a cultural icon to be auctioned since Elton John's in 1988, when 2,000 lots were sold for a total of 4.8 million pounds.

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