Kittens that ***** tea and toads that play leapfrog: Bizarre world of a Victorian taxidermist in special one-off exhibition
They look perfectly civilised, carefully passing cups and plates around a large table while enjoying afternoon tea.
But these guests are in fact stuffed kittens in an odd piece of artwork which will make up part of a special one-off exhibition.
It is just one piece of a bizarre Victorian collection of stuffed ******* which was broken up and sold around the world seven years ago.
The eccentric world of taxidermist Walter Potter, where stuffed ******* mimic human life including toads playing leapfrog and rat police raiding a ******** den, was sold for more than £500,000 in 2003.
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The Kittens' Tea Party by Walter Potter is one of a number of works by Victorian taxidermist Walter Potter brought together for a one-off exhibition
*********** including comedian Harry Hill, photographer David Bailey and Peter Blake snapped up pieces from the 10,000 item collection in Mr Potter's eerie Museum of Curiosities.
But it caused outrage when John and Wendy Watts split up and sold the historic dioramas, which were previously displayed at Cornwall's Jamaica Inn.
Artist Damien Hurst, a huge fan of Walter Potter's work, said he would have paid £1 million to keep the collection together.
Now, the quirky display is being reassembled in an exhibition at the Museum of Everything in Primrose Hill, London co-curated by artist Sir Peter Blake.
Opening next Wednesday, it will feature some of Mr Potter's most famous works.
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Walter Potter's 1850 creation Athletic Toads is among items which caught the eyes of *********** who paid thousands of pounds for them during an auction seven years ago
The new exhibition, which will run until Christmas, features works loaned from Damien Hurst, David Bailey and other enthusiasts.
The largest piece, The Death and Burial of Cock Robin, displays 98 species of British birds including a weeping robin widow and an owl gravedigger.
It was the highest-selling item of the sale in 2003, raising £23,500, and usually occupies the entire length of retired academic Pat Morris' bedroom wall.
Peter Blake has also lent The House that Jack Built, which features a miniature hen watching over a nest of wren's eggs, and a particularly sinister work titled The Babes in the Wood.
Mr Potter started his collection at the age of 19 when his canary died and he dissected the bird before stuffing it for display in the ****** summer house.
His ****** kept his museum in Bramber, Sussex open after his death in 1918, but it closed in the 1970s.
The collection was moved to Brighton and then to Arundel before finally ending up in Cornwall.
The Museum of Everything's founder, James Brett, said: 'The idea of re-creating the Potter museum began as a chance remark by Peter and it became an obsession to bring it back together.
'It has taken over my life. But Potter was worth it, he was a true original and himself an outsider artist as much as a craftsman.
'I can tell a Potter from the work of another taxidermist at a glance across a room - he was a genius.'
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The Rabbits' Village School will be exhibited at the Museum of Everything in Primrose Hill, London
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Creator: Walter Potter was responsible for the strange scenes of stuffed *******
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