In 1882, the nawab of Bahawalpur, Sadiq Muhammad Khan Abbasi IV, anonymously commissioned this bed from a Parisian manufacturer. Why was he embarrassed to be ordering a bed? Because Abbasi requested that there be four life-sized bronze figurines of naked women, complete with natural hair and movable eyes, holding fans and horsetails.

Wires were engineered so that downward pressure on the mattress – like a man lying on it – would set the figures in motion. Each lovely lady winked and fanned the nawab, while a selection from the opera Faust played from a built-in music box.