In the mid-1970s Ross returned to the United States and devoted himself to sculpture and collecting Imperial European military art and antiques from the period of Waterloo to 1914.

Christopher Ross’ wearable luxury art collection Animal Instinct is a series of animal-inspired, limited edition pieces intricately crafted by the artist himself from antique sterling silver, 24-karat gold and his signature Bohemian glass eyes.

[2] At nine years old, Ross was inspired by his father—who fought as a soldier in the trenches at the Somme, Ypres and Château-Thierry during World War I—who took him to Bannerman's Castle and warehouse of army surplus, which ultimately led him to become a serious collector of the Imperial period.

[7] During the 1980s and '90s, Ross became an adviser to Diana Vreeland and subsequently Richard Martin and Harold Koda of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and objects from his private collection were on loan for several exhibitions including The Imperial Style: Fashions of the Hapsburg Era: Austria-Hungary (1979-1980),[24] The Age of Napoleon (1989-1990)[25] and Swords into Ploughshares (1995).

[26] The Nassau County Museum of Art in Roslyn Harbor, Long Island also used some of his historical pieces for their exhibition Napoleon And His Age in 2001.

[27] In September 1994, Prince Michael of Kent visited Ross' New York residence, to view his Tsarist military art collection, as he was doing research for one of his A&E documentary series on Nicolai II Alexandrovich Romanov, the last Tsar of Russia.