The gnome is fake but the photo’s value is very real

Remember the famous Cottingley Fairies? They were among the most remarkable images of the 20th Century – photographs of two girls with fairies in a Yorkshire garden, produced in 1917 as a practical joke.

And they fooled many of the great and good – notably Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

This photograph shown is the second in the Cottingley Fairies series. It is titled Iris and the Gnome and shows Elsie Wright sitting in the garden as a gnome dances towards her.

The image was taken by her cousin Frances Griffiths in September 1917 and was later published as a sepia gelatin silver print, approximately 8in x 6in, mounted and captioned.

At the time, the image provoked a bizarre public discussion.

If studied closely, the point of a hat pin in the gnome’s stomach – used to keep the cut-out standing – can be seen. Indeed, all the fairies were cut-out drawings secured to the ground by pins.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, after examining the print, concluded that this pin point was a navel, sparking a discussion on the methods of birth in the fairy kingdom.

Conan Doyle published five of the images in the 1920s, changing the girls’ names to protect their identity. This was why Elsie Wright is captioned Iris.

Iris and the Gnome sold for a five-times estimate £5,400 at Dominic Winter’s sale in Cirencester last month.

Another image, Alice and the Fairies, showing Frances Griffiths with a number of fairies in the West Yorkshire garden, sold for £15,000.

Again, Conan Doyle was behind the change of name to protect the youngster.

As for the cousins, well, they kept quiet about their elaborate hoax until the 1980s.