By Natasha Mulenga
LONDON (Reuters) – Model and photographer Pattie Boyd is selling handwritten lyrics and personal letters that reveal her relationships with late Beatle George Harrison and guitarist and singer Eric Clapton.
Boyd, who turns 80 on Sunday, was married to both musicians, inspiring songs such as Harrison’s “Something” and Clapton’s “Wonderful Tonight” and “Layla”.
More than 100 lots, including jewellery, clothes, photographs, handwritten lyrics and drawings by Harrison, are for sale in the “The Pattie Boyd Collection”, which runs for auction online at Christie’s until March 22.
“If I had one big treasure chest that explained me and my life, all these items here would be in it … these are all examples of the wonderful life I have been living,” Boyd told Reuters at a press preview on Thursday.
Lots leading the sale include the original artwork chosen by Clapton for the cover of Derek and The Dominos 1970 album “Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs”, with an estimated sale price of 40,000-60,000 pounds ($51,228-$76,842) and original handwritten lyrics for Harrison’s 1982 song “Mystical One” (30,000-50,000 pounds).
Boyd met Harrison on the set of 1964 Beatles film “A Hard Day’s Night”. They married in 1966. Photos of the couple and handwritten postcards from the Beatle are included in the auction.
Clapton would stay at their countryside house and became enamoured with Boyd, sending her a letter – included in the sale – in 1970 in which he wrote “… what I wish to ask you is if you still love your husband … all these questions are very impertinent, I know, but if there is still a feeling in your heart for me … you must let me know!”
Boyd eventually split from Harrison and was married to Clapton from 1979 to 1989. Photos of the guitarist, including alongside Harrison and other famous faces, are also being auctioned.
“When I looked at the letters from Eric in particular, it kind of broke my heart because I realised that … I was young, when he wrote them, it was too large to take in, (it) was so emotional and full of deep, deep passion that as a … girl, woman I couldn’t absorb it all too much,” Boyd said.
“… I want somebody else to sort of feel the pain, feel the love, feel the vibration, the energy.”
The lots are on public display at Christie’s March 15-21.
($1 = 0.7808 pounds)
(Reporting by Natasha Mulenga)
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