The unique portray from the quilt of Layla and Different Assorted Love Songs – first bought by Clapton, then gifted to Harrison, after which given from Harrison to Boyd – sells for $2.5 million at public sale
Pattie Boyd, the previous spouse of George Harrison and Eric Clapton and the inspiration for the latter’s “Layla,” offered her non-public assortment of letters, photographs and extra – together with objects from the 2 rock legends – at public sale for $3.6 million.
Boyd’s beautiful assortment of 111 artifacts tells the story of her whirlwind romance with Harrison after they met on a set of A Onerous Day’s Night time in 1964, their time collectively on the peak of Beatlemania, her disillusionment with him within the late Sixties, and Clapton’s makes an attempt to steal her away although he was shut buddies with Harrison.
Maybe essentially the most beautiful merchandise was a handwritten 1970 letter to Boyd from Clapton. “Dearest L,” he wrote. “It looks as if an eternity since I final noticed or spoke to you…If there may be nonetheless a sense in your coronary heart for me … it’s essential to let me know!..Don’t phone. Ship a letter … that’s a lot safer.”
When she rejected his preliminary overtures, Clapton descended right into a darkish cloud of alcohol and drug abuse that lasted for years. Previous to that, he poured all of his distress, lust, and heartbreak over the love triangle into the Seventies Derek and the Dominoes traditional “Layla.”
Boyd’s assortment accommodates Emile Théodore Frandsen de Schomberg’s unique portray La Jeune Fille au Bouquet, which was used as the quilt of the Layla and Different Assorted Love Songs album. Clapton gave Harrison the portray within the late Seventies, and he gave it to Boyd within the late Eighties. The portray offered for $2.5 million at public sale, greater than 33 instances its pre-auction estimate, the Related Press reviews.
By that time, Boyd had left Harrison for Clapton. They married in 1977. Boyd’s assortment features a handwritten Clapton setlist, polaroids from an impromptu Cream reunion in 1976, handwritten lyrics to an unfinished Clapton tune entitled “Candy Loraine,” and numerous postcards and letters from their marriage, which led to 1989.
