Hirst flogs Pharmacy gems

Artist Damien Hirst is selling the contents of his London restaurant "Pharmacy", complete with its skeletons.

The restaurant, in Notting Hill, combined food with modern art, but its pharmacist's shop decor led some unwary shoppers to walk in clutching prescriptions. It shut last year.

Skeletons, apothecary jars and aspirin-shaped bar stools from the once ultra-hip eatery are among more than 140 lots due to go under the hammer at auction house Sotheby's.

"I was very disappointed when Pharmacy closed," said Hirst, who co-owned and designed the restaurant.

"I think auctioning all the stuff is a great idea as that way everybody gets a chance to own a piece. I mean, I can only use so many plates and pots and pans myself..."

Hirst won Britain's top modern art award, the Turner Prize, in 1995 for "Mother and Child, Divided," which featured an adult cow and a baby calf, each split in half, pickled in formaldehyde and displayed in glass tanks.