Oddities abound at Crowe’s divorce auction
People have made a fuss about Russell Crowe’s leather jockstrap, but probably the most esoteric lot in a sale of the actor’s belongings was a dead horse.
To be clear, it was a prop horse from Crowe’s 2000 movie Gladiator – life-sized, and ‘‘realistically rendered in rubberised material with a textured chestnut faux fur mane’’, according to the lot notes.
The auction yesterday at Sotheby’s Australia in Sydney, titled The Art of Divorce, came about because the New Zealand-born actor decided ‘‘to turn something that was a little bit bleak into something joyful’’.
The 227 lots were a hodgepodge of movie memorabilia, fine art, antique weapons, motorcycles, musical instruments, watches, and a 2001 Mercedes S class. (A mildly excruciating lot note explains: ‘‘One of Russell Crowe’s personal cars, this vehicle also served as one of the wedding cars on the day of his marriage to Danielle Spencer on 7 April 2003.’’)
There was also, however disconcerting, a range of women’s jewellery, which Crowe presumably kept after the divorce.
Some art, including a 17thcentury Flemish tapestry, would appeal to buyers who had never heard of Crowe and his many blockbusters.
Other items presumably went to devoted Crowe fans and memorabilia seekers.
Aside from the rubber horses and leather jockstrap (used in the
2005 film Cinderella Man), lucky buyers went home with a pair of lovingly used ice skates, a full outfit worn by Crowe as Captain Jack Aubrey in the 2003 movie Master and Commander, a violin used by Crowe in the same film, and a leather sketchbook used by Crowe’s character in the 2007 movie 3:10 To Yuma.
Other lots might have been incomprehensible to an audience not steeped in the sport of cricket.
In a TV interview, a jocular Crowe led a camera crew into a room full of Australian cricket players’ jerseys, which he had framed and which were also for sale. Walking past a massive, life-size bronze statue of Donald Bradman, Crowe came to a wall-mounted collection of memorabilia.
‘‘This is the killer,’’ he said. ‘‘This is Bert Oldfield’s Baggy Green. It is the cap that Bert Oldfield was wearing when Harold Larwood struck him on the head.’’
Oldfield’s skull was fractured in 1933 by a ball bowled by English cricketer Harold Larwood during the third test of the infamous 1932-33 Bodyline series, in Adelaide. Oldfield was carried from the ground unconscious but recovered in time for the fifth test.
Oldfield forgave Larwood for the incident, and the two became friends when Larwood later emigrated to Australia.
That collection was estimated to sell for A$40,000 to A$60,000 (NZ$42,200 to $63,300).
Given the popularity of movie memorabilia and Crowe’s star power, the auction was expected to be a success.
‘‘I don’t collect for the sake of collecting; I collect because I’m passionate about a particular subject,’’ Crowe said in the interview. ‘‘Part of that collector’s passion is actually an excitement – that the next person who comes along and has the custodianship of a particular item is going to enjoy it and love it as much as I do.’’