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Lot Essay
By mid-1964, the Beatles' astronomical success saw them encouraged by their advisors to start investing in property. That year both John Lennon and George Harrison selected homes in the Surrey stockbroker belt south of London, while Ringo Starr followed suit a year later. Lennon purchased the mock Tudor “Kenwood” on the secluded St. George’s Hill estate in Weybridge on 15 July 1964 for £20,000 and swiftly shelled out twice that figure again on renovations, led by interior designer Ken Partridge, to fit out the four-bedroom home in style for wife Cynthia and their one-year-old son Julian. The Lennons would remain at Kenwood until John’s affair with Yoko Ono and their ensuing divorce necessitated the sale of the house in 1968.
Cynthia recalled that she and Julian lived in the attic for nine months during the renovations while Lennon was on tour, however the accompanying news clipping concerning Ken Partridge’s work on the project indicates that the majority of the redecoration was complete by February 1965. As such, it’s likely that Lennon acquired this 1870s Broadwood ‘Cottage Upright’ piano in the first few months of that year. Broadwood's records confirm that the piano was tuned for Mrs Lennon at Kenwood, Cavendish Road, Weybridge, Surrey, on 5 May 1965. Amusingly, Broadwood’s archives also include a record of the tuning bill being sent to the Lennons four times before it was eventually paid that August. According to Broadwood, the “No. 6” ebonized cottage piano was made at their Horseferry Road workshop in Westminster, London, on 25 September 1873 and was sold wholesale to Messrs Hime and Sons of Liverpool, after which the piano disappears from their ledgers, its whereabouts unknown, until it resurfaced in Lennon’s possession in 1965. It’s known that Lennon had at least three pianos at Kenwood: a small upright in his attic studio, believed to be a Monington & Weston, which was last seen in Lennon’s apartment at the Dakota in New York and presumably remains there; a Bechstein upright in the sunroom, hand-painted with a psychedelic design by the Dutch design collective The Fool, which was at some point moved to George Harrison’s Friar Park estate and presumably remains there; and this ebonized Broadwood upright, which was kept in the den and appears to have been a particular favorite of Lennon’s.
At Lennon’s request, the den was painted red with black woodwork. It’s not known whether this was done to match the piano, or the piano was acquired to match the room, but the accompanying news clipping on the redecoration of Kenwood suggests the former: On John’s instructions, Ken found a suit of armour for the hall… According to Ken this was one of only two outright demands John made during the redecoration of his home. The other – a request for an all-red room – was granted. This is the rumpus room with red carpet, red ceiling and curtains in three shades of red… Furniture in the rumpus room includes an upright Victorian piano, one of John’s prized possessions and described by Ken as “looking so wonderfully beat-up it passes for antique. The piano looks as though it is full of beer bottles inside. The keys are yellow stained – perhaps as a result of spilled beer from its ancient past. Still, John knocks out good music on it.
In her 2005 memoir John, Cynthia revealed that she and John were most comfortable in the den and confirmed that he would often feel inspired to write in there: Neither of us was at ease with a grand scale of living and we ended up making a den in the small back room. It had a comfy old sofa, a TV, a table at which we ate and Julian's toys. When John wasn't working he lay on the sofa, apparently watching the TV – which he liked to keep permanently switched on – but often a million miles away, lost in a daydream… I didn't mind: it was his way of coping with the stresses of his life, and these "absent" moments were a vital part of the creative process. After an hour or two he'd often get up, go to the piano and start writing a song… Sometimes he would play the piano for hours while I sat dress-making, keeping him company. Then there would be phone calls back and forth to Paul, as they played and sang to each other over the phone. Cynthia goes on to note that Lennon and McCartney would often work on songs together at Kenwood: They spent a great deal of time composing together, one sitting at the piano, the other jotting down lyrics or strumming a guitar, both calling for vast amounts of sarnies and tea, totally immersed in what they were doing.
Lennon’s longtime friend Pete Shotton, who spent most of his weekends at Kenwood and later became his personal assistant, similarly documented Lennon’s songwriting during this period: John could never bear to be left completely alone – even when he was composing his songs. Much of my time at Kenwood was spent idly reading or watching TV while John, a few feet away, doodled at the piano or scribbled verses on a scrap of paper… The stimulus for the songs John wrote in Weybridge usually derived from something he heard or saw – a TV advertisement, an old poster, a newspaper headline, or even (in the case of ‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds’) a drawing by his son Julian. The words almost always preceded the music – which, in turn, was generally composed on the piano rather than the guitar. Lennon was increasingly turning to piano as his songwriting instrument of choice during the Kenwood years. In his 1971 interview with Jann Wenner for Rolling Stone, Lennon explained that he could be more creative on the piano than the guitar, as he was less familiar with the instrument: Because I can play the piano even worse than I play the guitar — a limited palette, as they call it — I surprise myself.
The four years that Lennon lived at Kenwood spanned the most inventive and intensively creative period of the Beatles’ career, as they moved away from touring and transitioned to a more experimental, studio-based band. The songs that he wrote there, sometimes in his attic studio or sunroom, but just as often in the den on this very piano, would evolve into his numerous essential contributions to some of the Beatles’ most celebrated records, including Help!, Rubber Soul, Revolver, Magical Mystery Tour and, of course, their psychedelic masterpiece Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. We can only speculate as to which of Lennon’s other myriad compositions might have originated on this piano, however thanks to the plaque that Lennon had fixed to the case, we know that all four of his major songwriting contributions to Sgt. Pepper were at least partially written on the present instrument at Kenwood in early 1967. At Kenwood, Shotton notes, John generally wrote only when the spirit moved him – unless, of course, the Beatles were due in the studio to record a new album; in that case, he would steel himself for a week or two of virtually nonstop writing.
A DAY IN THE LIFE
Lennon was inspired to write ‘A Day in the Life’ while sitting at this piano reading the newspaper on 17 January 1967. I was writing the song with the 'Daily Mail' propped up in front of me on the piano. I had it open to their 'News in Brief,' or ‘Far and Near,’ whatever they call it, he told biographer Hunter Davies in 1967. Interviewed by David Sheff some months before his death in 1980, Lennon elaborated: I noticed two stories. One was the Guinness heir who killed himself in a car. That was the main headline story. He died in London in a car crash. On the next page was a story about 4000 holes in Blackburn, Lancashire. In the streets, that is. They were going to fill them all. Paul's contribution was the beautiful little lick in the song “I'd love to turn you on.” I had the bulk of the song and the words, but he contributed this little lick floating around in his head that he couldn't use for anything. I thought it was a damn good piece of work.
BEING FOR THE BENEFIT OF MR. KITE!
Sitting at this piano in the den at Kenwood, waiting for inspiration to strike, Lennon’s glance settled on the 19th-century circus poster for Pablo Fanque's Circus Royal appearance at Rochdale, which he had purchased only a week or so before. ‘Mr. Kite’ was a straight lift, he told Davies. I had all the words staring me in the face one day when I was looking for a song. It was from this old poster I'd bought at an antique shop… I went into this shop and bought an old poster advertising a variety show which starred Mr. Kite. It said the Henderson's would also be there, late of Pablo Fanques Fair. There would be hoops and horses and someone going through a hogs head of real fire. Then there was Henry the Horse. The band would start at ten to six. All at Bishopsgate. Look, there's the bill – with Mr. Kite topping it. I hardly made up a word, just connecting the lists together. Word for word, really.
The antique circus poster that inspired the song can actually be seen on the wall in the den just to the right of this piano in photographs taken by Leslie Bryce during a June 1967 visit to Kenwood with editor Sean O’Mahony for The Beatles Book magazine, one of which was featured in the September 1967 issue. O’Mahony described the visit in a two-part feature on ‘John At Home’ in the two subsequent issues: On the ground floor there is a large entrance hall, lined with shelves of books, stretching from floor to ceiling. To the right it leads to the kitchen, which is situated in the centre of the house, and to the left are two rooms, one very large, one small. The smaller room contained two pianos, one Broadwood, one Bechstein. The mahogany case of the Bechstein, however, was fast disappearing under a psychedelic design which was being painted on by two Dutch artists, Simon and Marijke. The Bechstein would be moved back to the sunroom after painting.
LUCY IN THE SKY WITH DIAMONDS
My son Julian came in one day with a picture he painted about a school friend of his named Lucy, Lennon told Sheff in 1980. He had sketched in some stars in the sky and called it 'Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,' Simple… The images were from 'Alice in Wonderland.' It was Alice in the boat. She is buying an egg and it turns into Humpty Dumpty. The woman serving in the shop turns into a sheep and the next minute they are rowing in a rowing boat somewhere and I was visualizing that. There was also the image of the female who would someday come save me... a 'girl with kaleidoscope eyes' who would come out of the sky. It turned out to be Yoko, though I hadn't met Yoko yet. So maybe it should be 'Yoko in the Sky with Diamonds.' When it was pointed out that the first letters of the song’s title spelled LSD, Lennon repeatedly denied any conscious intention to reference the psychedelic drug, declaring It's NOT an acid song.
GOOD MORNING GOOD MORNING
‘Good Morning Good Morning’ was inspired by the cheery jingle on a Kellogg's television advert. I often sit at the piano, working at songs, with the telly on low in the background, Lennon told Davies in 1967. If I’m a bit low and not getting much done, then the words on the telly come through. That’s when I heard Good morning, Good morning. Speaking to Rolling Stone editor Jonathan Cott just days before his death in 1980, Lennon admitted that the song was just an exercise, explaining I only had about a week to write songs for Pepper. [It] was a Kellogg’s Corn Flakes ad at the time – that’s how desperate I was for a song. McCartney provided additional context to the song years later, telling biographer Barry Miles: John was feeling trapped in suburbia and was going through some problems with Cynthia. It was about his boring life at the time. There’s a reference in the lyrics to ‘nothing to do’ and ‘meet the wife’; there was an afternoon TV soap called ‘Meet The Wife’ that John watched, he was that bored, but I think he was also starting to get alarm bells and so ‘Good morning, good morning’.
The Lennons' marriage broke up in late May 1968 when Cynthia returned home from a holiday in Greece to find John and Yoko at Kenwood together. At some point after that date, the ‘Fool’ painted piano (which was seen in the home movie that John and Yoko shot that week at Kenwood for their experimental films Smile and Two Virgins) was moved out of the sunroom and replaced with the Broadwood. The Broadwood can be seen behind John and Yoko in its new sunroom location in photographs taken by Ray Green that December, not long after the new couple had temporarily moved back into Kenwood. Following Kenwood’s sale, Lennon moved the trusty Broadwood upright to his new home with Yoko – the 72-acre Tittenhurst Park estate in Ascot, Berkshire – in August 1969. One of the photographs of John and Yoko captured by Tommy Hanley during the filming of the Imagine promotional film shows the piano in the dining room at Tittenhurst on 3 August 1971.
It’s believed that Lennon arranged for the brass plaque, listing the famous songs he had written on the instrument, to be fixed to the piano when he planned to donate it to auction to raise funds for the legal defense of London-based black rights activist Michael X following his arrest for extortion in late 1970. It was reported that Lennon paid his bail in January 1971. Presumably, the planned auction did not go ahead when Michael X fled the UK for his native Trinidad and Tobago that February, where he would later be charged with murder. The piano was left behind at Tittenhurst when John and Yoko moved to New York in August 1971 and remained in store there when the couple sold the Ascot estate to Ringo Starr in September 1973.
Recording engineer Mike O’Donnell, who managed Starr’s Startling Studios at Tittenhurst, remembers the piano from this transition period. He confirmed that Lennon left many instruments and items of furniture behind, some of which were to be shipped to America and some of which were to be sold. O’Donnell recalled that when he and his wife moved into one of the cottages on the Tittenhurst estate, this piano was kept in their cottage. According to the accompanying letter of provenance from London law firm Simons, Muirhead, Allan & Burton, dated August 1983, the piano was then removed from Tittenhurst and delivered to an associate of John Lennon by his personal assistant Peter Bendrey in 1974, whereafter the piano was ultimately gifted to said associate the following year. On Lennon’s request, Dennis Muirhead of Simons, Muirhead, Allan & Burton represented Michael de Freitas (Michael X) when he was facing the death penalty for murder in Trinidad in 1975.
ADDITIONAL REFERENCES:
J. Cott, ‘John Lennon: The Last Interview’, Rolling Stone, Issue 1120⁄1121, January 2011.
H. Davies, The Beatles: The Authorized Biography, New York, 1968.
J. Lennon and J.S. Wenner, Lennon Remembers, San Francisco, 1971.
J. Lennon, Y. Ono and D. Sheff, All We Are Saying: The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono, New York, 2000.
B. Miles, Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now, London, 1997.
P. Shotton and N. Schaffner, John Lennon: In My Life, New York, 1983.
Christie’s is very grateful to Broadwood & Sons for their assistance in researching this piano.
Cynthia recalled that she and Julian lived in the attic for nine months during the renovations while Lennon was on tour, however the accompanying news clipping concerning Ken Partridge’s work on the project indicates that the majority of the redecoration was complete by February 1965. As such, it’s likely that Lennon acquired this 1870s Broadwood ‘Cottage Upright’ piano in the first few months of that year. Broadwood's records confirm that the piano was tuned for Mrs Lennon at Kenwood, Cavendish Road, Weybridge, Surrey, on 5 May 1965. Amusingly, Broadwood’s archives also include a record of the tuning bill being sent to the Lennons four times before it was eventually paid that August. According to Broadwood, the “No. 6” ebonized cottage piano was made at their Horseferry Road workshop in Westminster, London, on 25 September 1873 and was sold wholesale to Messrs Hime and Sons of Liverpool, after which the piano disappears from their ledgers, its whereabouts unknown, until it resurfaced in Lennon’s possession in 1965. It’s known that Lennon had at least three pianos at Kenwood: a small upright in his attic studio, believed to be a Monington & Weston, which was last seen in Lennon’s apartment at the Dakota in New York and presumably remains there; a Bechstein upright in the sunroom, hand-painted with a psychedelic design by the Dutch design collective The Fool, which was at some point moved to George Harrison’s Friar Park estate and presumably remains there; and this ebonized Broadwood upright, which was kept in the den and appears to have been a particular favorite of Lennon’s.
At Lennon’s request, the den was painted red with black woodwork. It’s not known whether this was done to match the piano, or the piano was acquired to match the room, but the accompanying news clipping on the redecoration of Kenwood suggests the former: On John’s instructions, Ken found a suit of armour for the hall… According to Ken this was one of only two outright demands John made during the redecoration of his home. The other – a request for an all-red room – was granted. This is the rumpus room with red carpet, red ceiling and curtains in three shades of red… Furniture in the rumpus room includes an upright Victorian piano, one of John’s prized possessions and described by Ken as “looking so wonderfully beat-up it passes for antique. The piano looks as though it is full of beer bottles inside. The keys are yellow stained – perhaps as a result of spilled beer from its ancient past. Still, John knocks out good music on it.
In her 2005 memoir John, Cynthia revealed that she and John were most comfortable in the den and confirmed that he would often feel inspired to write in there: Neither of us was at ease with a grand scale of living and we ended up making a den in the small back room. It had a comfy old sofa, a TV, a table at which we ate and Julian's toys. When John wasn't working he lay on the sofa, apparently watching the TV – which he liked to keep permanently switched on – but often a million miles away, lost in a daydream… I didn't mind: it was his way of coping with the stresses of his life, and these "absent" moments were a vital part of the creative process. After an hour or two he'd often get up, go to the piano and start writing a song… Sometimes he would play the piano for hours while I sat dress-making, keeping him company. Then there would be phone calls back and forth to Paul, as they played and sang to each other over the phone. Cynthia goes on to note that Lennon and McCartney would often work on songs together at Kenwood: They spent a great deal of time composing together, one sitting at the piano, the other jotting down lyrics or strumming a guitar, both calling for vast amounts of sarnies and tea, totally immersed in what they were doing.
Lennon’s longtime friend Pete Shotton, who spent most of his weekends at Kenwood and later became his personal assistant, similarly documented Lennon’s songwriting during this period: John could never bear to be left completely alone – even when he was composing his songs. Much of my time at Kenwood was spent idly reading or watching TV while John, a few feet away, doodled at the piano or scribbled verses on a scrap of paper… The stimulus for the songs John wrote in Weybridge usually derived from something he heard or saw – a TV advertisement, an old poster, a newspaper headline, or even (in the case of ‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds’) a drawing by his son Julian. The words almost always preceded the music – which, in turn, was generally composed on the piano rather than the guitar. Lennon was increasingly turning to piano as his songwriting instrument of choice during the Kenwood years. In his 1971 interview with Jann Wenner for Rolling Stone, Lennon explained that he could be more creative on the piano than the guitar, as he was less familiar with the instrument: Because I can play the piano even worse than I play the guitar — a limited palette, as they call it — I surprise myself.
The four years that Lennon lived at Kenwood spanned the most inventive and intensively creative period of the Beatles’ career, as they moved away from touring and transitioned to a more experimental, studio-based band. The songs that he wrote there, sometimes in his attic studio or sunroom, but just as often in the den on this very piano, would evolve into his numerous essential contributions to some of the Beatles’ most celebrated records, including Help!, Rubber Soul, Revolver, Magical Mystery Tour and, of course, their psychedelic masterpiece Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. We can only speculate as to which of Lennon’s other myriad compositions might have originated on this piano, however thanks to the plaque that Lennon had fixed to the case, we know that all four of his major songwriting contributions to Sgt. Pepper were at least partially written on the present instrument at Kenwood in early 1967. At Kenwood, Shotton notes, John generally wrote only when the spirit moved him – unless, of course, the Beatles were due in the studio to record a new album; in that case, he would steel himself for a week or two of virtually nonstop writing.
A DAY IN THE LIFE
Lennon was inspired to write ‘A Day in the Life’ while sitting at this piano reading the newspaper on 17 January 1967. I was writing the song with the 'Daily Mail' propped up in front of me on the piano. I had it open to their 'News in Brief,' or ‘Far and Near,’ whatever they call it, he told biographer Hunter Davies in 1967. Interviewed by David Sheff some months before his death in 1980, Lennon elaborated: I noticed two stories. One was the Guinness heir who killed himself in a car. That was the main headline story. He died in London in a car crash. On the next page was a story about 4000 holes in Blackburn, Lancashire. In the streets, that is. They were going to fill them all. Paul's contribution was the beautiful little lick in the song “I'd love to turn you on.” I had the bulk of the song and the words, but he contributed this little lick floating around in his head that he couldn't use for anything. I thought it was a damn good piece of work.
BEING FOR THE BENEFIT OF MR. KITE!
Sitting at this piano in the den at Kenwood, waiting for inspiration to strike, Lennon’s glance settled on the 19th-century circus poster for Pablo Fanque's Circus Royal appearance at Rochdale, which he had purchased only a week or so before. ‘Mr. Kite’ was a straight lift, he told Davies. I had all the words staring me in the face one day when I was looking for a song. It was from this old poster I'd bought at an antique shop… I went into this shop and bought an old poster advertising a variety show which starred Mr. Kite. It said the Henderson's would also be there, late of Pablo Fanques Fair. There would be hoops and horses and someone going through a hogs head of real fire. Then there was Henry the Horse. The band would start at ten to six. All at Bishopsgate. Look, there's the bill – with Mr. Kite topping it. I hardly made up a word, just connecting the lists together. Word for word, really.
The antique circus poster that inspired the song can actually be seen on the wall in the den just to the right of this piano in photographs taken by Leslie Bryce during a June 1967 visit to Kenwood with editor Sean O’Mahony for The Beatles Book magazine, one of which was featured in the September 1967 issue. O’Mahony described the visit in a two-part feature on ‘John At Home’ in the two subsequent issues: On the ground floor there is a large entrance hall, lined with shelves of books, stretching from floor to ceiling. To the right it leads to the kitchen, which is situated in the centre of the house, and to the left are two rooms, one very large, one small. The smaller room contained two pianos, one Broadwood, one Bechstein. The mahogany case of the Bechstein, however, was fast disappearing under a psychedelic design which was being painted on by two Dutch artists, Simon and Marijke. The Bechstein would be moved back to the sunroom after painting.
LUCY IN THE SKY WITH DIAMONDS
My son Julian came in one day with a picture he painted about a school friend of his named Lucy, Lennon told Sheff in 1980. He had sketched in some stars in the sky and called it 'Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,' Simple… The images were from 'Alice in Wonderland.' It was Alice in the boat. She is buying an egg and it turns into Humpty Dumpty. The woman serving in the shop turns into a sheep and the next minute they are rowing in a rowing boat somewhere and I was visualizing that. There was also the image of the female who would someday come save me... a 'girl with kaleidoscope eyes' who would come out of the sky. It turned out to be Yoko, though I hadn't met Yoko yet. So maybe it should be 'Yoko in the Sky with Diamonds.' When it was pointed out that the first letters of the song’s title spelled LSD, Lennon repeatedly denied any conscious intention to reference the psychedelic drug, declaring It's NOT an acid song.
GOOD MORNING GOOD MORNING
‘Good Morning Good Morning’ was inspired by the cheery jingle on a Kellogg's television advert. I often sit at the piano, working at songs, with the telly on low in the background, Lennon told Davies in 1967. If I’m a bit low and not getting much done, then the words on the telly come through. That’s when I heard Good morning, Good morning. Speaking to Rolling Stone editor Jonathan Cott just days before his death in 1980, Lennon admitted that the song was just an exercise, explaining I only had about a week to write songs for Pepper. [It] was a Kellogg’s Corn Flakes ad at the time – that’s how desperate I was for a song. McCartney provided additional context to the song years later, telling biographer Barry Miles: John was feeling trapped in suburbia and was going through some problems with Cynthia. It was about his boring life at the time. There’s a reference in the lyrics to ‘nothing to do’ and ‘meet the wife’; there was an afternoon TV soap called ‘Meet The Wife’ that John watched, he was that bored, but I think he was also starting to get alarm bells and so ‘Good morning, good morning’.
The Lennons' marriage broke up in late May 1968 when Cynthia returned home from a holiday in Greece to find John and Yoko at Kenwood together. At some point after that date, the ‘Fool’ painted piano (which was seen in the home movie that John and Yoko shot that week at Kenwood for their experimental films Smile and Two Virgins) was moved out of the sunroom and replaced with the Broadwood. The Broadwood can be seen behind John and Yoko in its new sunroom location in photographs taken by Ray Green that December, not long after the new couple had temporarily moved back into Kenwood. Following Kenwood’s sale, Lennon moved the trusty Broadwood upright to his new home with Yoko – the 72-acre Tittenhurst Park estate in Ascot, Berkshire – in August 1969. One of the photographs of John and Yoko captured by Tommy Hanley during the filming of the Imagine promotional film shows the piano in the dining room at Tittenhurst on 3 August 1971.
It’s believed that Lennon arranged for the brass plaque, listing the famous songs he had written on the instrument, to be fixed to the piano when he planned to donate it to auction to raise funds for the legal defense of London-based black rights activist Michael X following his arrest for extortion in late 1970. It was reported that Lennon paid his bail in January 1971. Presumably, the planned auction did not go ahead when Michael X fled the UK for his native Trinidad and Tobago that February, where he would later be charged with murder. The piano was left behind at Tittenhurst when John and Yoko moved to New York in August 1971 and remained in store there when the couple sold the Ascot estate to Ringo Starr in September 1973.
Recording engineer Mike O’Donnell, who managed Starr’s Startling Studios at Tittenhurst, remembers the piano from this transition period. He confirmed that Lennon left many instruments and items of furniture behind, some of which were to be shipped to America and some of which were to be sold. O’Donnell recalled that when he and his wife moved into one of the cottages on the Tittenhurst estate, this piano was kept in their cottage. According to the accompanying letter of provenance from London law firm Simons, Muirhead, Allan & Burton, dated August 1983, the piano was then removed from Tittenhurst and delivered to an associate of John Lennon by his personal assistant Peter Bendrey in 1974, whereafter the piano was ultimately gifted to said associate the following year. On Lennon’s request, Dennis Muirhead of Simons, Muirhead, Allan & Burton represented Michael de Freitas (Michael X) when he was facing the death penalty for murder in Trinidad in 1975.
ADDITIONAL REFERENCES:
J. Cott, ‘John Lennon: The Last Interview’, Rolling Stone, Issue 1120⁄1121, January 2011.
H. Davies, The Beatles: The Authorized Biography, New York, 1968.
J. Lennon and J.S. Wenner, Lennon Remembers, San Francisco, 1971.
J. Lennon, Y. Ono and D. Sheff, All We Are Saying: The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono, New York, 2000.
B. Miles, Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now, London, 1997.
P. Shotton and N. Schaffner, John Lennon: In My Life, New York, 1983.
Christie’s is very grateful to Broadwood & Sons for their assistance in researching this piano.