The ‘Freddie Mercury—A World of His Own’ exhibition showcases about 20 items owned by Queen’s late lead singer, and will be on display in Hong Kong until Friday
Hong Kong fans of British rock band Queen can see items from Freddie Mercury’s personal collection in person at Sotheby’s Freddie Mercury—A World of His Own exhibition until June 30, 2023. Among the collection includes never-before-seen working lyrics in Mercury’s own handwriting, his Adidas trainers, moustache comb and a gold Cartier brooch.
Hong Kong is the only city in Asia to host this collection before the items—around 20 or so—return to London for a month-long exhibition alongside more than 1,000 other items, also from Mercury’s personal belongings, from August 4 to September 5. After that, the collection will be sold in public and private auctions in September.
These items not only highlight different aspects of Mercury’s life, they also reveal fun facts and secret stories that are less well-known to many. Yesterday, Tatler attended the press preview and here are the top five revelations Gabriel Heaton, Sotheby’s books and manuscripts specialist, shared with us.
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Garden Lodge record
Mercury was known for his flamboyant, lavish and fun-loving character and lifestyle, and the fact that he was fond of hosting gatherings—whether that is large-scale birthday parties for a guest list of hundreds or intimate dinner parties—at his home called Garden Lodge in Kensington, West London.
Within the Freddie Mercury—A World of His Own exhibition is a record of one such dinner party where one of his guests was Spanish opera soprano Montserrat Caballé, with whom Mercury had collaborated for the album Barcelona (1988). It was the second and final album Mercury recorded outside of his work with Queen, and the collaboration with such a different artist had a lot to do with the wild dinner party.
“The two sang together until 2.30 in the morning, when she had to catch a plane,” Heaton says. “It was Montserrat who said, ‘Freddie, we must work together.’ He said, ‘Okay, shall we write a song?’ She said, ‘No, no, no, not a song. We’ll do an album’. It was terrifying [for Mercury]. He wasn’t a trained opera singer.”