Eye on the oddball

From a triceratops to a flying machine at Christie’s quirky sale

The Old Curiosity Shop takes a contemporary twist in Christie’s Out of the Ordinary exhibition (beginning on Monday August 5) and sale (Thursday September 5), which features such eccentric items as a giant rocking horse the size of a two-storey house (estimated at £25,000-£40,000), eight of Francis Bacon’s paint brushes (£20,000-£25,000) and an almost 6ft chair in the shape of a leopardskin shoe (£8,000-£12,000). Forget the usual strictures of auction theme here; if it’s weird, it works.

The oddball menagerie includes a triceratops skull excavated from private land in the US, with bidding predicted to reach between £150,000 and £250,000. “The triceratops roamed the earth at the same time as the T-rex, which would probably have considered it a tasty meal,” says specialist James Hyslop, head of the travel, science and natural history department. “It’s an extraordinary item to see at auction and is a lot bigger than you’d expect.”

But perhaps one of the most excitingly bizarre items is the 8ft-tall robot Cygan (second picture, £8,000-£12,000). This giant feat of electrical engineering once had the ability to accept spoken commands and respond to light rays. “Cygan was a real celebrity robot of the 1950s and 1960s,” says Charlotte Young, head of sale for Out of the Ordinary. “Although he is sadly no longer operational, he is bursting with personality, and it would be a fantastic project for someone to get him functioning again.” No doubt: when Cygan dazzled the crowds with his first appearance at Olympia in 1958, he also busted out some dance moves.

One degree away from celebrity, the Waxflatter Ornithopter (first picture) is the extraordinary flying machine that featured in Steven Spielberg’s 1985 film Young Sherlock Holmes. Complete with wings, skis, pedals and wheels for sky-high power, it is estimated to reach between £50,000 and £80,000.

But if your caviar bowl is looking a little small, on sale is a privately commissioned caviar dish (third picture) reputed to be the largest in the world and set to fetch up to £100,000. The challenge, of course, would be to train Cygan the Robot to arrive by flying machine and serve Beluga while dancing for assembled guests, before making off on his rocking horse. It’s hard to believe that stranger things have ever happened at Christie’s. More power to these out-of-the-ordinary wonders.